The Bellagio Peregrination
by FlippySpoon
Summary: Summary: Sheldon reluctantly takes Penny along to a conference in Las Vegas. Epiphanies are had, stars are gazed, cards are counted, shenanigans are shenaniganed.
1. Chapter 1

** The Bellagio Peregrination  
**

**Summary**: Sheldon reluctantly takes Penny along to a conference in Las Vegas. Epiphanies are had, stars are gazed, cards are counted, shenanigans are had.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own this show. Chuck Lorre owns this show.

**Note**: So this takes place post-"Hawking Excitation." Let's say by now, Howard and Bernadette are married, although it won't come up much or anything. This is a big fat fun fic and I'm very close to finishing it, so you won't be left hanging. Enjoy!

**Chapter 1**

"Sheldon, come on. Pleeeeease!" Penny staggered after Sheldon, following him to his kitchen, hunched in the defeated posture of a child. Leonard watched them, amused.

Sheldon grabbed a Diet Coke and gazed down at the girl with disbelief. "Absolutely not, Penny. This is not a vacation-"

"But it _could_ be for me."

"I'm attending this conference under duress. Three nights of consorting with the pop stars of the physics world as well as a bunch of New York publishers because President Siebert is pressuring me into accepting a book deal since my paper on the Higgs Boson. And all the while the promise of department funding is dangled over my head." He pointed at his roommate and popped open his soda. "I blame you for this, Leonard."

Leonard rolled his eyes. "Yes, I apologize for getting you out of that Skyrim fueled sulk fest you were so enjoying after the Hawking debacle. You fixed the paper, didn't you? Hawking read it. He loved it. You're huge right now, Sheldon. What more do you want?"

"What I want is to be left alone to work," Sheldon huffed. "Not to be trotted around in _Las Vegas_ of all places like some toddler in a subatomic tiara only to be turned into the next Brain Greene. God forbid." Leonard just smirked at him and Sheldon said, "The subatomic tiara remark was figurative."

"I assumed that," Leonard said.

He nodded at Penny. "I also blame you for my awareness of that horrifying program."

Penny looked sheepish. "Fair enough. It is horrifying."

"This is all your fault!" Sheldon yelped at Leonard, with a stomp of his foot. "Why can't _you_ come with me?"

"First you blame me, then you…" Leonard grumbled. "Look, I told you. I'd love to take off to Vegas for a few days and stay at the fraking _Bellagio_. I can't. I'm booked for the JPL labs and I won't get another chance for months."

"You say that as if it's important work."

"Nice," Leonard sighed. "And it's Howard's mother's birthday this weekend and Raj is visiting his parents. And Amy's busy for some reason-"

"Amy's not an option," Sheldon muttered, his cheeks pink. Leonard looked at Penny questioningly and she shrugged.

No one had seen Amy in weeks. When they asked Sheldon he just said she was "otherwise engaged for the foreseeable future."

"So you should take Penny!" Leonard insisted. "You're comped for two people. Why waste it? Plus, she can drive so you don't have to fly since there aren't any trains to Vegas. And to be honest, the thought of you alone in Vegas is a little more than any of us can handle."

"Yeeeeeah!" Penny whined. "And it's at The Bellagio! I love The Bellagio!"

"That's not all she loves," Leonard said in a barely audible singsong.

Penny stalked over to him and kicked his foot, blushing furiously. "That's not why I'm going and shut up! I still know how to hogtie you."

Sheldon frowned at them. "There is a subtext here of which I am unaware," Sheldon said. Penny glanced at him wide-eyed and he shrugged. "Fortunately, I'm both uninterested and unable to decode such interactions."

"And for that we're all grateful," Penny said. "Look, I will follow all your rules, okay? I'll go to your orientation itinerary review thing or whatever and I won't be in your way. All I want to do is lay by the pool and drink mojitos all day. I just got _The Witch and Mister Blue _series. And you know, Vegas by yourself is super depressing."

"The Witch and Mister Blue?" Sheldon said with an extra touch of derision on the "Blue."

"Paranormal romance," Penny said.

"Of course it is," Sheldon said.

"I just really need this right now, you have no idea."

"Why? Is something going on?" Leonard said. "You just got that indie movie. I thought things were going well."

"Yeah…that indie movie with the teeny tiny budget. More like a student film. I have six lines. Basically getting paid in craft services. No, they are. Going well. Totally. I'm just…stressed. I need to relax." She turned on her best pout and batted her eyes.

Sheldon crossed his arms and twitched. "How you intend to relax in a city-sized pinball machine, I do not know. But…alright. You may accompany me."

"Yay!" Penny bounced on her toes and clapped her hands.

"But you have to drive."

"Of course!"

"And play car games."

"I kind of suck at your car games, but I'll do my best."

"Well, that would be a first then," Sheldon sighed.

Penny ignored the insult (besides which, he wasn't far off on that one) and continued to bounce. "Oh my God, Sheldon. Thank you so much. I'm so excited. I gotta dig out my bikini! Permission to hug?"

Sheldon deflated slightly. "Permission granted," he said with resignation.

Penny threw her arms around him and he glared at Leonard over her shoulder. "Your fault," he said.

Leonard appeared far too happy. "I wish I had the money to send a camera crew with you. Live tweet this if at all possible. Periodic Facebook posts would be appreciated. With photographic evidence."

"I do not like you."

* * *

"We will be leaving at five AM Wednesday morning." Sheldon tapped his mouse and a Powerpoint screen was projected onto his white board. It was a Photoshopped picture of Sheldon and Penny riding in the Taxi from _Roger Rabbit_. Penny briefly thought this was adorable before processing his words.

"Five?" Penny gripped a legal pad and a purple pen with a Penny Blossom attached to the end. She was taking this seriously. More seriously even than the failed physics lessons. That was how much she needed the vacation.

"To avoid traffic." He tapped the mouse again and the next picture was cars bumper to bumper on a highway.

"We're already going on a weekday in the middle of September. There's not going to be traffic."

"Penny, you agreed to abide my rules and itinerary-"

"Right. Yes." She took a deep breath and envisioned the crystal clear beauty of the pools at The Bellagio with all the columns and fountains and luxurious sunning chairs and the hot waiters bringing mojitos and shrimp all day… For _three_ days. "I will absolutely be ready to leave at five o'clock in the morning if necessary. I just don't think it's necessary. Especially if we can't check in before noon. Also keep in mind, I'm driving and I'm not a morning person."

Sheldon acknowledged her points with a tilt of his head. "Fine. We'll leave at seven. Drink a couple of Red Bulls."

"No problem."

"Approximate duration of drive is four and one half hours including two bathroom stops with optional snack purchase for no longer than five minutes. Unless... Will you be menstruating?"

Penny narrowed her eyes. "No," she growled.

"I only ask out of consideration," he pointed out. "To account for possible alternate bathroom breaks or sanitary napkin purchases-"

"I won't be on my period!"

"Noted." He clicked the mouse and a map of the route to Vegas popped on the screen. "We will be taking the Two-ten Freeway to Interstate Fifteen. Are you writing this down?"

Penny tapped her pen impatiently. "I know the route to Vegas. I've driven there before."

"Are you sure?" He pointed at the map. "That's the Two-ten-"

"Sheldon, I can see the route. That's exactly the route I was going to take."

"Oh. Good. One less thing to worry about. As previously discussed, we will be switching cars with Leonard-"

"That's fine. But I told you, there's nothing wrong with my car."

"You have no authority to make such a claim." Still looking at her he tapped his mouse which brought up a picture of her check-engine light.

"Okay, okay. As long as Leonard doesn't mind."

"He does not. Now, before we go any further, regarding the most important issue... Sunscreen!"

"Oh brother."

* * *

As it turned out, Penny needed no extra incentive to get up early when the Wednesday of their departure to Vegas arrived. She woke an hour before her alarm out of excitement. She was showered, primped, packed, and ready to go ahead of schedule and sat on the couch drinking coffee, all but vibrating in her seat, for as long as she could stand. She peed twice to make sure her bladder was "well voided" as Sheldon had put it. At seven seconds after 7:00AM she locked up, dragged her bags into the hallway, and stood in front of 4A.

Knock knock knock.

"Sheldon!"

Knock knock knock.

"Sheldon!"

Knock knock knock.

"Sheldon!"

Sheldon whipped open the door, smiling wryly. "Good morning, Penny."

She grinned and put her sunglasses up like a headband. "Yo, what's the hold up?"

Sheldon frowned and checked his watch. "It's twenty-four seconds after seven."

"I know! Let's go, high roller."

"Very well." He let her in and Penny's mouth dropped open at his two suitcases and duffel. "You have as much stuff as I do and I brought seven pairs of heels."

"I assure you, though our luggage may be equal in volume, it is unequal in significance. I'm prepared for any unforeseen circumstances, whereas you're merely taking varied forms of inappropriate footwear."

"That's because we have different definitions of unforeseen circumstances," Penny cracked. "And I'm sure yours include zombies, aliens, and Cylons."

Sheldon was making a note on his Itinerary Clipboard, but he jerked, shooting her a disbelieving look. "Don't be silly, Penny. Cylons aren't real."

Leonard shuffled into the living room, yawning and in his bathrobe. He nodded at them with a smile. "Ah, the Oceans two. On your way out?"

"Yep!" Penny couldn't help but give a little hop of glee. "Thanks for letting us borrow your car."

Leonard tossed her his keys. "Filled her up for ya'."

She caught them and nodded back. "Thank you, sweetie."

On their way out, as Penny was following Sheldon who was dragging his suitcases behind him, he heard Leonard say to Penny, "Here's your chance, Penny. Go get em'."

Penny whipped around and smacked him on the shoulder. "Shut up! I will _kill _you!"

He chuckled and waved as they dragged their stuff down the stairs. "Bye, kids! Drive safe! Have fun stormin' the castle!"

* * *

"On the road again, I can't believe I'm on the road again..."

"I'm unclear as to your claims of disbelief," Sheldon said. "You drive on the roads of Pasadena everyday."

"You've seriously never heard that song?" Penny drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.

"Hmm. Musical references. The Achilles heel of my world knowledge. Albeit an unnecessary facet."

"Excuse me, a lot of people would say music is very necessary. Saved my life more than once."

They were cruising down Colorado Boulevard and Penny was only too happy to bat the verbal ping-pong ball between them.

"Oh really?" Sheldon said. "Music saved your life? Did Thom Yorke once dive into a rip tide and return you to shore?"

Penny almost swerved into a lamp post. "How the hell do you know who Thom Yorke is?"

"I googled Radiohead after your supposed challenge to my superior intellect three years ago."

"I remember that. I didn't challenge the fact that your intellect is superior. That's a given. You said you knew everything there is to know about everything. And you don't."

"I recall the conversation, Penny. Word for word." He tapped his head. "Eidetic memory. I said I had a working knowledge of the important things in the universe."

"Which assumes that Radiohead isn't important." Penny turned onto the freeway and smirked. She was having fun.

"It's not."

"I'm not saying it's as important as string theory," Penny said. Although inwardly, she thought that philosophically speaking, they were probably of equal importance. "But it's certainly as important as Star Trek or The Flash."

"Oh please," Sheldon snorted. "It's popular music."

"It's art."

"_Penny_-"

"_Sheldon_," Penny said in a goofy voice. "Did you actually bother to listen to any Radiohead when you googled them?"

"No."

"I know you like music alright, Sheldon. I've heard you play the piano."

"Piano lessons were foisted _upon_ me."

"Right, whatever." Eyes partly on the road and partly on her iPod, she scrolled through her albums and selected _Kid A_. "I issue you a challenge, Sheldon Cooper."

"Fascinating. Name your terms." He relaxed back in his seat. The sky was boldly bright and cloudless. It was a gorgeous day in Southern California. A part of his brain was somewhat startled to realize, though he had initially dreaded this conference, he now found himself more than content.

"I'm going to put on this Radiohead album. It's called _Kid A._ We're going to listen all the way through. Without talking."

"Without _talking_?" There went the contentment. Now he was rather put out. "We're supposed to be playing the agreed upon car games."

"Yeah, we will. It's a four hour car ride, we got time. I'm serious here. I want you to listen to the album."

"Do I get some kind of reward if I get all the way through without talking?"

Penny giggled. Of course, Sheldon would find the difficult part to be his own silence. "Sure. I'll spot you the snacks when we stop."

"It's a snack option. I'm not necessarily-"

"Sweetie, we both know you're getting Red Vines and Yoohoo."

"Alright," he grumbled. "And what is the point of this exercise?"

"The point," Penny said, "is that when the album is over, I want your honest opinion. I'd also like to know if it made you feel any particular way."

He pursed his lips. "Why?"

"I'm curious." She shrugged. They were speeding down the 210 now. "This album's always reminded me of you."

"Has it? That's interesting," he muttered. He was wary.

"Now, listen. Try not to over think the lyrics-"

"I know how to listen to a _song_, Penny."

"Yeah, sure. I know you take everything literally and start over-analyzing. Try to just _feel_ it. Yeah?"

"Ugh. You're such a hippie. What if I don't like it? Will you be angry?"

She smirked at him. "Of course not, sweetie. Just be honest. I'll know if you're lying anyway."

That was true enough. He sighed in acquiescence. "Very well. Challenge accepted."

So Penny counted to three and put on the album. Sheldon took a breath and listened, resting his head on the back of his seat.

As the first song opened, he found himself a little unnerved by the hypnotic electric piano and distorted vocal effects. He was reminded of a melancholy robot getting up in the morning. If robots did so.

_Everything in it's right place..._

* * *

After the album ended with a sort of short orchestral synopsis, Penny glanced at him expectantly. He was allowed to speak now.

"So." Penny said. "What did you think? It's okay if you didn't like it."

"I don't know if I liked it or not," he said. "It's hard to say. I certainly prefer Beethoven or Chopin."

He wasn't used to attempting to describe something as ephemeral as music.

She shrugged. "Considering I thought you'd probably hate it, that's not so bad," she said.

"The themes were fascinating," he went on. "Although ambiguous. Yet the music itself was a bit cacophonous and unsettling. Oddly dream-like."

Penny smiled at him. She seemed pleased. "I can see that. I've listened to it so many times but, yeah. I could see that."

"Why would it remind you of me?" His cheeks felt warm and he wondered what emotional reaction that he was unaware of was causing that particular physicality. It was nothing he could name. This was also why he so studiously ignored the propensity to art. It was so subjective. He could talk at length about the logic of superheroes or the leadership of Captain Picard, but to describe how somebody's creation made you _feel_, well it often caused a sudden loss of the proper vocabulary. And also, there were no right answers per se. So what was the point?

Penny cleared her throat and stared straight ahead at the road. "Oh...well. It's probably silly." The truth was, when Penny had thought of it, she had written it all down in her journal. She had crossed things out and reworded things. When she was finished she reread it over and over. She was a little bit proud of her thesis on Sheldon and _Kid A_. Doubtless, he would think it was ridiculous. She shouldn't have said anything about it reminding her of him. But she knew he wasn't about to let it go, so she took a breath and dove in.

"So, it's not so much about the lyrics, the reason it reminds me of you. Some of the lyrics, sure. But the feel of it... The first time I thought of this was because of the song "Optimistic." I imagined it could be about evolution in a weird way? Which I wouldn't have thought of, except you're always talking about _homo novus_ and all that. I imagined that the whole album was about someone who's evolved. He's become advanced, right? To the point that he's kind of connected to the whole universe because he sees it's mechanics more clearly than anyone else. But he's also weirdly disconnected from the world. From people. Because they don't understand him. So he's totally connected and disconnected. It's like he understands everything and nothing. I mean if everything includes both the way the world works physically and also, like human understanding... It's um..." She tapped her fingers. She had looked up the phrase. What was it? "Oh yeah. It's kind of a dichotomy."

She spared a glance at Sheldon, who was just staring straight ahead. He didn't say anything.

He finally said, "And that reminded you of me?"

"Uh...yeah." It suddenly occurred to Penny that her little thesis was wildly personal. It was never something she'd ever expected to share with Sheldon or anyone. Why would Sheldon ever be interested? How would it ever come up? But somehow it had seemed natural in the moment to explain it to him.

Sheldon was quiet again and when she glanced at him, she saw his mouth twitching a little. Great. Now she'd upset him. Of course, it was too personal.

She cleared her throat. "Hey, why don't we listen to that Doctor Who radio drama thing you told me about? You'll have to explain to me about Daleks again. They're robots, right?"

Sheldon brightened immediately and put on his happily superior face. "Penny, I've told you a number of times. They're not robots! They're the mutated descendents of the Kaleds of Skaro. They're cyborgs if anything-"

"Eh, robots...cyborgs. Same thing."

"Penny!"

She giggled.

* * *

Sheldon swallowed a bite of Red Vine and said, in a guttural voice, "_Vam OH_!"

"Um...what?" Penny's lips twitched in amusement.

"That's 'enjoyable journey' in Klingon."

"Got it," Penny said, taking a sip of Red Bull. They were making great time on the I-15. "_Vam OH_!"

"In the interest of ensuring your participation in car games, I've devised a couple that require no scientific or historical knowledge. They are the least intellectually arduous games I was able to invent."

"Right." Penny frowned, but didn't let him see it, since they were having such a nice time. But she felt that all too familiar sting.

_Yes, Penny. You're stupid. Sheldon's just stating a fact. He does it with everybody._

Except Leonard, Howard, and Raj, weren't stupid and they knew it. She had no such assurance.

"The first game is creatively and narratively based," Sheldon explained. "It is called Mortal Conundrum. In this game the first player creates a fictional situation in which he or she is in some kind of danger. The second player is then given a suggested solution to rescue the first player which would require certain peril, possibly mortal. The second player may either accept the solution, or come up with a better alternative."

Penny nodded, focused on the road as well as his instructions. "Why wouldn't the second player just automatically take whatever the solution was? How does the alternative fit in?"

Sheldon sighed dramatically. "Because, Penny, the whole point is to take the game as seriously as possible. You must imagine that the situations are absolutely real. If the second player does not accept the solution and can't come up with a logically sound alternative, they lose the game."

Now that sounded like a game invented by a guy who had written a Body Snatchers Clause into the Roommate Agreement.

"Okay, that sounds kinda fun." _OK Computer_ was playing through the car speakers, and she turned it down slightly. "You wanna go first?"

"Very well." Sheldon squirmed, excited, in his seat. "The scenario is this. The world has been overrun by a zombie-creating virus-"

"Of course it has." Penny said.

Professorial expression of irritation: "Please let me finish."

"Go ahead."

"The world has been overrun by a zombie-creating virus. One day a massive hoard of zombies-"

"Zombies move in hoards?"

"Obviously. One day a massive hoard of zombies is moving through Pasadena-"

"From which direction?" Penny didn't smirk, but Sheldon couldn't see the laughing expression in her eyes. He might not recognize it anyhow. She didn't give a crap about 'from which direction', but this was a delight.

Sheldon took the question seriously and mulled it over for a moment. "For the purposes of the game, let us say they are taking the parade route."

Penny whistled. "Hoo boy, those rich folks on South Orange Grove aren't going to like that all."

"Oh, they're all dead," Sheldon said, with a casual wave of his hand. "Now, you're holed up at the Cheesecake Factory. You and the staff have barricaded the doors and windows and you expect the zombies to pass you by. As far as you know, the rest of us are safe out of town-"

"Hey wait a minute, why are you guys safe out of town?"

Sheldon mulled and chewed on a Red Vine. "We were out of town when the outbreak began."

"Should've taken me with you," she muttered.

"It's for the purposes of the _game_, Penny."

"I know that, I'm just saying, if there's ever really a zombie invasion, you guys better take me with you if you leave."

"Of course we would," Sheldon huffed. "Judging by your skills at paintball and your professed talent in junior rodeo, you would be our best chance of survival."

"Darn tootin'."

"As I was _saying_, as far as you know I am safe. But as it turns out, I was separated from the others. Unaware of the approaching hoard, I returned home. Now I am trapped in the apartment. The zombies have passed through Old Town and are approaching Los Robles, when you find out I'm stuck-"

"How do I find out?"

Sheldon made a little noise of irritation.

"C'mon Sheldon, obviously there's no internet or cell phones, right?"

Boy, she'd been paying too much attention to the way these guys' brains worked. But still: fun.

"It's a post-apocalyptic hell-scape!" Sheldon agreed. "There's no Facebook!"

"Exactly, so how-"

"Carrier pigeon."

"Carrier pigeon?" Penny snorted a laugh.

"Certainly. I started raising them long before the outbreak, having predicted it and suspecting the grid would go down."

"And you sent an SOS via carrier pigeon to the Cheesecake Factory?"

"Yes. But not an SOS per se. Morse code wouldn't be necessary if I were able to write a note."

"I didn't mean...alright."

"So your suggested solution is to take the shotgun and hatchet you are given-"

"I have a shotgun? Where'd I get a shotgun?"

"Your manager has a secret stash of weapons and ammunition. _Anyhow_, your suggested solution is to fight your way through the zombie hoard to save me as the apartment building will doubtless be overrun-"

"And I'm supposed to pretend you were left completely unprepared for a zombie attack when you know very well-"

"No, of course I wasn't! But I was...slowly fading into unconsciousness when I sent the carrier pigeon. Caused by...dehydration. Because a bunch of jocks took my store of water."

"Okay, that makes sense."

"So do you fight your way through the zombie hoard? Or devise a reasonable alternative?"

"Automatic shotgun?"

"Penny." Derisive look. "Far too easy. It's the... It has the pumpy thing."

Penny burst into laughter. "Pumpy thing? You mean pump-action?"

"I don't know about _guns_. One of the few cliched Texas traditions I was able to escape."

"Fine. Pump-action. How many rounds?"

"Eh...twenty." He would've thought all these details out beforehand, but the scenario was off the top of his head to give Penny equal footing.

"Oooh. Not great odds for a zombie hoard."

"You also have the hatchet."

"Okaaay." She pursed her lips and thought about it for all of ten seconds. "Yeah, I'd fight my way through the hoard. Suggested solution accepted."

"Now, Penny," Sheldon said, all irritation again. "You have to take it _seriously."_

"I just asked you a whole mess of questions! I am taking it seriously!"

Sheldon took a big chug of Yoohoo. "Penny, you have to fight through an entire _hoard_."

She shrugged. "It's only like eight blocks."

"But there are hundreds of them! You only have twenty rounds!"

"Zombies are slow and I'm an excellent shot."

"Penny, your death is certain. You'd never make it."

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"You could at least try to come up with an alternative."

She licked her lips. "Okay, well like what? I can't think of anything."

"You could wait out the hoard-"

"No way. You might be dead."

"For all you know, they've passed right by the building-"

"But I don't know that. I'm not just gonna sit around waiting."

"Well, you could attempt to go around the perimeter of the hoard and approach our building from the north-"

"Nope. Take way too long. You'd be dead."

Sheldon seemed almost put out. "Well, if nothing else, on the off chance there is a corpse in the Cheesecake Factory that you know not to be infected by the zombie virus, you should coat yourself in their innards as in _The Walking Dead_. Assuming the zombies ignore the scent of desiccating flesh in favor of the living."

Penny blinked at him. "Okay. That's cool."

"Let us be clear, Penny. Do you honestly expect me to believe that you would, in reality, cover yourself in the decaying guts of a dead person and battle your way through hundreds of _un_dead to rescue me with only twenty rounds and a hatchet?"

"Hells yeah, sweetie."

"Oh."

"I do have one more question," Penny said.

"Yes?"

"If this is a post-apocalyptic hell-scape, what the frak am I doing still going to the Cheesecake Factory everyday?"

Sheldon widened his eyes. "I can't believe I didn't think of that!"


	2. Chapter 2

**The Bellagio Peregrination Chapter 2  
**

**Disclaimer: I don't own this show. Chuck Lorre owns this show.  
**

**Note: I was so happy to see all those story alerts and reviews, I decided to throw up chapter 2. I'm hoping to finish the entire story this weekend. I'm guessing about 8 sizable chapters total? Glad to see that people are liking the Sheldon/Penny dialogue as this story consists of A LOT of it. Enjoy!  
**

**Chapter 2  
**

The valet was parking their car and a bell-hop was carting their bags. Penny was feeling a little light headed at the reality that she'd be staying at the very hotel she'd always fantasized about staying at while on low-budget off-strip trips to Vegas with her girlfriends. Though in her fantasies she was a rich and famous actress, here was something sweet about getting to stay at The Bellagio because she was friends with a physicist who happened to be on a career upswing. Sheldon checked them in as she gaped at the decadence of the lobby, her mouth hanging open like a fish. He returned to her, holding two thick folders full of brochures and cards.

"Hey Sheldon, who exactly is paying for this anyway?" She muttered, staring at the almost psychedelic flower sculpture inlaid in the ceiling. "CalTech?"

"Hardly," Sheldon snorted. "No, the cost is shared amongst the publishers I'll be speaking with. As well as other media providers with some interest in the increased popularity of science. Wired Magazine and many other periodicals, The Science Channel, National Geographic, Nova, ScyFy, G4... I assume there will be a veritable gaggle of bloggers. Every time that Neil DeGrass Tyson is on television, our metaphorical stock rises."

"Ah, the Pluto guy."

"I've forgiven him," Sheldon said with magnanimity. "But it still stings."

"That's so cool, Sheldon! You're such a rock star."

He smiled, pleased. "To be honest, I wouldn't mind writing a book. Not some pablum for the masses necessarily. But perhaps a more in depth version of my Higgs Boson paper."

"That would be great for you." Penny's eyes lit up and she gasped. "Oh my God, what if they _did_ ask you to do something on TV? Would you?"

"As long as Kripke's nowhere near the studio. Certainly."

He led her through the enormous lobby, the bell-hop ahead of them.

"So what's our room like?" Penny said.

He handed her a key-card. "We are staying in a two-bedroom penthouse suite on the thirty-first floor. As far as room service, we may charge anything we like to the room at the expense of our hosts. I imagine we might have lunch or dinner at any of these restaurants as well. We've also been given several complimentary amenities including the..." He read from a brochure in his folder. "The 'Detox to Relax' spa package. Personally, I would prefer a zombie hoard with _zero_ rounds than to have my naked spine buffeted by some questionably licensed trade school dropout on her way to seducing army men at a dime-a-dance, but I assume you would be interested. Includes massage, manicure, pedicure, facial, milk bath, seaweed body wrap... I know you professed little interest in gambling, but you also have a five hundred dollar casino card to play with if you so desire. They threw in several gift cards to some of the boutiques in the shopping area. Do you like..." He frowned at a brochure. "Dior?" He looked up, expecting an answer, but Penny was not walking next to him. He whipped around. "Penny?"

Penny was a few feet behind him, leaning against a pillar and looking dazed. "Oh...wow." She slumped slightly.

He ran up to her. "Penny! Are you quite well? Now, you're dehydrated, aren't you? I told you to drink more water. We _are_ in a desert climate and-"

"Sheldon!" Her eyes were watery. She straightened up and made a move to hug him but thought better of it. "This is so...nice!"

He shrugged. "I suppose it doesn't suck."

Somehow it was even more endearing that the privileges of wealth held so little interest for him. She wanted badly to hug him again but that would be more for her than for him. She spotted a rosy cheeked overweight middle-aged woman with two children walking by and she sprang forward, enveloping her in a hug.

"Oh!" Penny yelped, her eyes watering.

"Oh my goodness!" The lady said in a distinct Minnesotan accent. "What's this now?"

She broke away and waved her hands as if it would somehow make her few tears go away. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" She pointed at Sheldon. "I wanted to hug him but he doesn't like it."

"Oh!" The lady laughed and nodded at Sheldon. "You should work on that. Have a nice day."

"You too!" She whipped back around to Sheldon, who looked alarmed. "Oh Sheldon, this is so amazing. Thank you so much."

"You're welcome," he said slowly. "Please desist from mauling tourists."

"Okay."

They caught up with the bell-hop and Sheldon couldn't help but be technical about things. "I accept your thanks, but I haven't done anything in regards to this trip except reluctantly agree to go at Siebert's request. Nay, his demand. All this has cost me nothing. In fact, the only effort exerted as been by you, having driven us. So, thank you."

They stepped into the elevator and Penny grinned up at him. "Sheldon. You're so adorable sometimes."

"Well, that's what my meemaw says."

* * *

The penthouse suite was even more luxurious than she'd imagined and eclectically styled in dark woods and rich red and neutral fabrics. Sheldon tipped the bell-hop and Penny waited by the door, staring.

He looked at her in question. "Penny?"

She crossed her arms and nodded. "Go ahead," she said. "Go find your spot, inspect the room's upkeep. Get your black-light or whatever."

"How did you know I brought a black-light?"

"You're you, sweetie. It's been five years."

Sure enough, he wandered around the suite for five minutes, testing every available seat and finally settled into the corner of the L-shaped couch.

"Ah, yes. Here it is," he muttered.

She waited while he inspected the bedroom and bathroom and returned, tapping his black-light on his leg. "Penny, I'm taking the smaller guest bedroom as I prefer the bed that faces south towards the door. You may have the master."

"Wha..." She dashed into the master bedroom which was absurdly huge and returned, feeling almost guilty. "Sheldon, I can't. It's your trip, you should have the master bedroom."

"Penny, I _prefer_ the smaller bedroom."

"But..."

He sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Okay! Okay!" She shrugged. "I'll take the master."

* * *

Penny was sitting on her bed frowning at her phone. Sheldon didn't think much of it. He was more alarmed by the messy half-unpacked state of her luggage. He was also concerned with whether they should rest or eat first before eventually getting ready for the opening banquet of the Science and Media Conference.

He asked her three times before she finally looked up and said, "Huh?"

He bit his tongue, holding back aggravation. "I said, do you want to eat first or perhaps rest? I'm going to order room service. No choice but to trust unproven kitchens in this venture. But this being a five star hotel, I'm hoping for the best."

"Oh. Yeah, let's eat," she muttered. "I'm starved. I saw the menu, just get me pasta or something. I'm just gonna freshen up."

She disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door. "Wasn't very specific," Sheldon mumbled, ambling back to his room.

Penny sat on the edge of the Whirlpool tub and listened to her voicemails.

Cheerful Leonard: How was it going with Sheldon? Had she killed him yet? Kissed him yet? Breakups weren't so bad if the aftermath was this entertaining. No seriously, he hoped they were having a good time. What the hell had happened with Amy?

Irate landlord: She was getting evicted.

So that was happening. Indie movie or no. All because... Well, that led to the third voicemail.

Irate mother: What the hell did Penny mean she had given her deadbeat brother the rest of her money from the hemorrhoid commercial? _Of course_, he ran off with it. How could she be so stupid? And she wanted to go back to school? And pay for it how? This California thing had made her soft. Not to mention broke. It was time to come home. Penny should call her back as soon as possible.

Penny grabbed the thickest, softest, whitest towel she'd ever felt off a gilded rack and cried into it for ten minutes, hoping the sound was muffled.

"I will not ruin this trip," she whispered to herself. "I will not ruin this trip. I'm so _stupid_."

When she had composed herself, she took a deep breath and stood. Her face in the mirror just made her want to cry more. Even a man notoriously unable to read facial cues would know she had been sobbing. Her eye caught the fluffy bathrobe hanging next to the tub, as well as the glassed in shower.

"Guess that'll do," she said softly.

* * *

By the time she emerged from the bedroom, hair wet, and wearing the bathrobe (because it was just so comforting), Sheldon was finished eating.

"That took you a long time," he noted.

"Felt like a shower," she said, smiling tightly. She sat at the small dining table that overlooked a view of the strip. Which she imagined would be breathtaking at night. "Wow. That's so pretty."

"Doubtless your meal has dropped to an inadequate temperature-"

"Oh, I don't mind." Sheldon had ordered her shrimp fettuccine, which was her favorite. She hadn't even noticed it was on the menu. "How'd you know shrimp fettuccine?"

He shrugged. "You always order shrimp fettuccine when we eat Italian. Except once on October fourth of 2010 when we all ate at Dominico's. They were out of shrimp fettuccine and you ordered chicken piccata. But you didn't like it. I also ordered your preferred Cabernet and tiramisu. I can't account for the Cabernet's year."

"Hey, wha-" She almost choked on her shrimp. It was delicious, even lukewarm. "Wait, how'd you know about the tiramisu? Now, I never order tiramisu. But yes, I do love it."

"Ah." He tilted his head in that way that really did make him look like C3PO. "February seventeenth of this year, you mentioned that you would prefer to order tiramisu when you eat Italian with Leonard. But you feel guilty because he can't eat dairy, so you order sorbet instead. And you don't buy it for yourself because it's expensive. Also, if you never ate cheesecake again, it would be too soon. I never understood that phrase."

"Well that was..." She shook her head, a bit amazed. "That was very kind of you, Sheldon. Thoughtful."

"I didn't do it out of kindness," he said, leaning on his arms. "I have an eidetic memory. I can easily recall that conversation so I knew you would prefer tiramisu."

"It's still kind. Why can't you just admit when you do something nice?"

Penthouse suites were always so romantically lit. It made Penny's eyes do that glittery thing Sheldon had seen them do so many times before. He stared down into his empty plate.

"Because it wasn't necessarily kindness," he said. "It was just logic. If I happened to remember what you prefer, why wouldn't I order it? If I ordered you something that I know you to dislike, I would be subject to your complaints."

Penny thoughtfully chewed her fettuccine and considered his point. "Okay," she said, as Sheldon sipped his Diet Coke. "So by your logic, no act can be considered kind if it's simply the logical thing to do."

"I believe that's what I'm saying, yes." He stirred his ice with a straw.

"So if that's true, how come you and the guys are always messing with each other? And you try to boss them around all the time?"

"Oh, well that's not my fault," he said with a shrug. "Their actions are often completely illogical. As are yours much of the time. I merely respond to their illogical actions. And yet somehow, I am the villain."

"Guess that's one way to look at it."

"Yes. The right way."

"Okay, so what do you consider an act of kindness then?"

"Oh, interesting question." He was having such an odd kind of fun, it was making his heart race a little. Clearly, he'd had too much caffeine. "I suppose it would require self-sacrifice on the part of the actor. It can't be an act of self-interest. For example, there was no self-sacrifice in me remembering that you like tiramisu but you never get to order it. Or in me bringing you here since I'm not paying for it, as previously discussed."

"Okaaaay." She took a sip of Cabernet. It _was_ a good year. "But you didn't want to bring me here originally."

"Only because I was wary of traveling with you alone. But you've been pleasant company."

"Thank you. But back to my point. You didn't know I would be pleasant company and you didn't want me to go. But you let me. So isn't that a teeny tiny bit of self-sacrifice?"

He huffed. "But you drove!"

"But when Leonard pointed out I would drive, you didn't immediately agree! I begged you and you finally let me. Which means you still didn't want me to come but you caved because _I_ wanted to come. Which means there was an eensy weensy bit of self-sacrifice. And thus, it was an act of kindness."

She's pretty proud of using "thus" in a sentence towards Sheldon.

"To begin with, the "eensy weensy bit" is not a valid unit of measurement. And secondly, I couldn't help it because you made Soft Kitty face!"

Penny's mouth dropped open. Sheldon did that awkward bit of arm movement he had a habit of doing when he was...awkward.

"Sheldon Lee Cooper, _what _is Soft Kitty face?"

"I don't know."

_Little boy voice, _she thought_. Awwww._

"Sheldon!"

"You must have misheard me, I said no such thing."

"Sheldon, pleeease tell me." She stuck her lower lip out and batted her eyelashes.

"Oh, Penny! You're doing it right now!"

"I am?" She blinked at him and frowned.

Sheldon exhaled and sat back. "That's better."

She made a face. "You mean...pouting?"

"Perhaps. You know I'm notoriously unable to read facial cues."

She stuck her bottom lip out again. "Is it this?"

"Penny, stop it." He whimpered, covering his eyes.

"That's just pouting, sweetie. But why do you call it Soft Kitty face?"

He whined. "Pennyyyy."

"Tell me."

"It's the face you made when you dislocated your shoulder," he mumbled into his glass of melting ice.

"Pretty sure when I dislocated my shoulder I was mostly grimacing in pain."

"No, no. This was later when you were heavily medicated and rambling incoherently about Pixar films."

"Oooooh. And I asked you to sing Soft Kitty."

"Yes. And you made that very...unsettling face." He fidgeted with his straw. "Though I'm grateful that you don't do it often."

"So what then? You're saying you can't resist Soft Kitty Face if I ask you to do something?"

"No no. No! Absolutely not. This is not some manipulative ploy you can use to just Lord over me-"

She stuck her lip out. He groaned.

"Pennyyy."

"That's so cute," she sighed. "Man, I was so high on that stuff. I kind of remember what I said but not really."

"You said I was like Wall-e," Sheldon mumbled.

"Ooh, that's right," she cooed.

He rolled his eyes and said with a weak attempt at derision, "A weird robot man...full of love."

Penny's fears (which were all very real) faded away and she beamed at Sheldon. Their eyes met for the smallest best moment ever before Sheldon was out of his seat like a shot.

"I'm going to change my clothes," he said. "I dislike wearing the same clothes I've been wearing during long car rides. Extraneous moisture collects in the small of your back if you sit in a car seat for several hours? And creates a dampening effect in your clothes. Or rather, extraneous moisture collects in the small of my back. I don't know about the small of your back. I don't think about the small of your back."

He whipped around and all but ran to his room.

"Wow," Penny breathed.

The tiramisu was orgasmic.


	3. Chapter 3

** The Bellagio Peregrination Chapter 3**

** Disclaimer: I don't own this show. Chuck Lorre owns this show.**

** Note: ****In my universe, physicists go to big media conferences in Vegas and get all kinds of ridiculous comps and the president of CalTech has drinks with basic cable people. 'Cause it's fun! Had to post Chapter 3 because I'm very impatient to post Chapter 4. After which; hijinx!**

**Chapter 3**

There were still a few hours until the banquet. Penny was dying to explore or go swimming, but she also wanted to stay out late so she opted for a short nap as Sheldon worked on his laptop. He was shy and quiet when Penny announced she was going to take a sleep for a bit and spared her one hesitant glance. If he was trying to make himself less appealing, he was failing miserably.

The greatest thing about Sheldon, Penny decided, was that anything he did that happened to be appealing to women was guaranteed not to be by design.

While napping, she had a nightmare about zombies. But in the end she managed to save Sheldon. And the moment she took her hatchet through the skull of the last staggering corpse and clasped Sheldon's hand in hers, all the scary massacred zombies turned to live mewling kittens. Which in reality, would be a logistical catastrophe. But in the dream, it was pretty sweet.

Knock knock knock.

"Penny."

Knock knock knock.

"Penny."

Knock knock knock.

"Penny."

Penny woke with a happy sigh. "Come in!"

He opened the door and she stretched on top of the covers like, well, a soft kitty. Sheldon shuffled in the doorway and avoided eye contact.

"The banquet begins at six o'clock," he said. "It is now four o'clock. Calculating the time it normally takes you to prepare for a night out and allowing for the possibility that you might further consider this a quote unquote special occasion, I estimated you might want approximately two hours to, as you put it, primp."

She rolled over onto her stomach and leaned on her hands. "Thanks. That's perfect."

He was tracing his finger along the door jamb as if searching for something. "Very well."

"Hey, what're you wearing?" She said, sitting up.

He blinked and looked down at his Green Lantern shirt. "Clothes?"

"I mean tonight."

He rolled his eyes. "As per your instance, I am wearing the black suit you picked out for the ill fated Chancellor's Award ceremony. Although I had to have it let out. It didn't fit."

"Oh yeah," she said. "You've bulked up a little since then."

"I have not bulked up!"

"Meant that in a good way, sweetie. Looks good on you. Got a little...meat on your bones!" She made an attempt at a comical growling sound and flexed. Sheldon blinked at her. She coughed. "Okay. Good. I'll just start getting ready then."

Hair first. Then make-up. Then dress.

She unpacked the dress and hung it on the bathroom door, clapping her hands in excitement. The dress was a sleeveless boatneck cocktail number of vintage black lace overlaying pink taffeta. It was like something Audrey Hepburn would've worn. She'd found it months before in a shop in Silver Lake and not yet had a reason to wear it. She'd been able to afford it because there were a couple of small tears in the hem that she was able to fix herself. The shoes were black platforms. Classic.

* * *

Knock knock knock.

"Penny."

Knock knock knock.

"Penny."

Knock knock knock.

"Penny. Are you decent?"

She opened the door. She was about to quip "never" in answer to his question, but all that came out was a surprised squeak because he was wearing his black suit. Her hair was only half-done and she was still in her sweatpants. It had taken her twenty minutes to decide on lipstick. Of course, he was already dressed and ready to go. And, in her opinion, he looked even better than he had the first time he'd worn the suit.

She eyed him up and down. "Yes. Decent."

"Penny, President Siebert wants to speak with me before the banquet begins-"

"Oh, no problem. I'll meet you there later."

"And you know where the conference is..."

"Yup. Tower Ballroom."

"Very good. They'll have your name at the door." He checked his watch. "I'd better go."

"No problem."

The situation felt oddly domestic with the shared suite and her getting ready in the bathroom, him in his suit... She had a wild impulse to kiss his cheek as if they were husband and wife getting ready for the evening.

Her phone rang and she grabbed it off the bathroom counter. It was her mother. She winced. "Better take this." She nodded at him. "See you in a bit."

He gave a little wave and left.

* * *

Sheldon stumbled into the elevator and pressed the button for the Lobby. He could not quite believe he'd actually told Penny about Soft Kitty Face and his weakness for same. _No one_ knew about Soft Kitty Face. The only facial expression in existence which effected him more than Soft Kitty Face was Penny when she cried. He shuddered. Nothing was worse than when Penny cried. He considered it the emotional equivalent of Magneto whenever he attacked Wolverine and held him suspended above the ground; his normally powerful adamantium claws utterly paralyzed. Or maybe the metaphor was problematic. It wasn't necessarily that his powers were rendered paralyzed so much as without utility. He had no tools to deal with emotional distress.

_Duh_, somebody somewhere would've said. Somebody he would no doubt look down upon.

All he had for Penny when she cried was a "there there" and a hot beverage.

He was already stepping into the lobby, reaching into his pocket for his phone, before he realized he'd left it in the room.

"Drat."

And back into the elevator.

_See? _ He wanted to say to Penny. _This is what happens when you examine emotional ambiguity too closely._ _Dichotomy indeed._

Dichotomy actually referred to division. He supposed she'd intended dichotomy to mean a contradictory situation. Two seemingly opposed states of being.

Connected and disconnected. Wave and particle.

"Perhaps she should've said duality," he muttered at the elevator.

Back in the hotel room he found his phone next to his laptop. Penny's door was slightly ajar and when he passed it, intending to leave, he heard Penny shrilly exclaim, "I don't _know_ what I'm doing yet!"

She was obviously on the phone. Sheldon froze. He racked his brain. What was the social etiquette? He should leave, yes? Eavesdropping was frowned upon. On the other hand, Penny was clearly in distress…

"Five thousand dollars… I know. I _know_ that, mom. Because I wanted to believe in my brother, okay? You know how he can be. He was so convincing. He was all straight and narrow, you know? And I never thought… Yes, but he's never done that before! Not to us. Mom, please don't…"

Then she started crying.

_Oh dear._

"I have to be out by the end of the month… I _tried_. No, I can't right now, I'm in Vegas." She was talking through her crying. Sheldon had never seen or heard her _this_ upset before. He disliked loud fights. He disliked Penny's tears even more. He was experiencing a peculiar psychosomatic reaction that made him unable to move.

_ So it is a paralysis._

He felt his facial muscles spasming.

"No, I'm not wasting money," she said angrily. "I haven't even had to pay for anything. I'm not lying. My friend Sheldon got a free trip… Because he's a really great friend and he let me come along. No, it's not like that… Yes. I know. I _know_. Well, what I _want_ to do is go back to school. I want to take business classes. Because I want to start my own… Why not? I know but…maybe… I might, I don't know. Do they even have jobs around Omaha right now? They don't have jobs here and it's L.A. I know. Of course, I will if I have to but… But I could… I-I… Mom…"

Her voice broke. "Mom, _please_ don't call me stupid."

Sheldon felt that squirming parasitic monster in his stomach; that thing that made him sad or happy or mad when he _himself_ wasn't sad or happy or mad. That thing he was constantly trying to both fight and learn how to understand.

Empathy.

And suddenly the weight of five years worth of disparaging Penny's intelligence came crashing down on Sheldon's head. He felt a bit sick.

"I have to go… I'm meeting Sheldon and I have to get ready. I know that, but this is important too. Well, it's important to _him_. No! Oh my God, goodbye!"

The end of the phone call seemed to jerk Sheldon out of his paralysis and the motivation of adrenaline drove him right out of the room.

He stood, blinking in the hallway, before a server with a cart full of room service asked him to move.

Into the elevator.

His phone vibrated. It was from Siebert. On second thought, he should meet Siebert at The Bellagio's Bank nightclub. As soon as possible.

That was something to do anyway. That was a protocol to follow. Go to The Bank and meet Siebert.

His hands were still shaky.

_"Why are you crying?"_

_ "Because I'm stupid!"_

_ "That's no reason to cry. One cries because one is sad. For example I cry because others are stupid. And that makes me sad."_

Sheldon Cooper had two definitions of stupid.

There was the sort of stupid that referred to anyone significantly less intelligent than he.

Which was everybody.

The second kind of stupid referred to the mass of people significantly less intelligent than the average. The global average specifically.

The first definition could refer to somebody like Howard Wolowitz. Howard Wolowitz had a master's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Rationally, Sheldon knew very well that a person couldn't accomplish such a thing and go on to become an engineer for NASA with a level of intelligence similar to that of say, Snookums, or whatever the girl on that awful show Penny liked was called.

The second kind of stupid referred to somebody like Zack.

Penny he considered "stupid" according to the first definition. But not according to the second. She was about average, he supposed. It was rather difficult for him to honestly judge the intelligence of normal people.

Not that he'd ever bothered to make himself clear on the subject. He also tended to lump the two kinds of stupid together into one big stupid glob.

It was different for Leonard, Raj, and Howard, he now realized as he wandered in the general direction of The Bank. They could take his crap because they knew better.

He'd always thought Penny knew better.

Besides which, he'd (quietly and only to himself) acknowledged that _maybe_ the social scientists were on to something in their theories of "emotional intelligence." Although the term made him shudder. And if _that_ was a valid paradigm, well then Penny was a genius and the rest of them were blithering idiots. But it was a frightening thought.

It was true that Penny had previously revealed to him insecurities as to her intelligence. But again, she had been comparing herself to three PhDs. And Howard.

_"You thought the opposite of stupid loser is community college graduate?"_

The salient point was that Penny's mother apparently thought she was stupid by mainstream standards. Which, if the most basic tenants of psychology were correct, meant that Penny probably thought she was stupid too.

To Sheldon, for whom the gifts of a first rate mind were to be treasured above all else (though loyalty to the meemaw was toe to toe), to know that Penny who he cared about very much might think she was truly unintelligent when she _wasn't... W_ell, it was an honest to Spock crisis is what it was. Penny wasn't stupid. She lacked ambition, sure. She was lazy most of the time. But she was creative and capable. She was warm and loyal. She would kick a large man in his nether regions just to win you back what amounted to imaginary possessions. She would take care to have a DNA laden napkin signed by your hero and be more pleased by the reciprocal hug than by the four hundred dollars in gift baskets. She would take you to Stan Lee's house. She would make you spaghetti with the little hot dogs cut up in it. She would sing you "Soft Kitty" and rub VapoRub on your chest even though, at the time, she barely _knew_ you...

She might even be willing to fight zombie hoards at her own peril to save you.

_ Penny..._

The Bank was all purple lights. It was cat-walks and unpleasantly pulsating music, but half empty because it wasn't even six o'clock yet. He spotted Siebert and some other men sitting on two upholstered benches. Siebert saw him and waved him over. Sheldon glanced around, half hoping actual zombies would emerge from beneath the dance floor.

There was more to Penny's phone call. A lot more.

"! There's our guy!" Siebert thumped him on the back to his chagrin and gestured to two young men dressed much the way Sheldon normally dressed when he wasn't wearing a suit, and one older white-haired man smoking an cigar. "Want you to meet some friends of mine!"

One of the younger men hopped to his feet. His hair was spiky and he had a goatee.

"Mad scientist guy!" The Goatee said. He was wearing a Captain America shirt and tight fitting jeans. Sheldon disliked him immediately. "Awesome! I've seen all your YouTube videos!"

Sheldon glared. "Ah, excellent. My cultural contributions are equal to that of a squirrel on a surfboard and a twelve year-old boy who can excrete milk from his tear ducts."

Penny had said she would be "out within a month." That could only mean she was getting evicted. So that was a problem. Fortunately, problems could be solved.

"Cooper, this is Ben from G4," Siebert said, clapping the spiky haired man on the back.

"You watch G4?" Ben said. His teeth were far too big.

"No."

"You game much?"

Sheldon just stared at him.

"He does from what I've heard." Siebert said. "Trust me!"

"Look," Ben said. "G4's thinkin' about adding more science based programming. We're thinkin' there's a big crossover audience. Like you! Right now we're doin' a big sponsorship for the new Mystic Warlords of Ka-ah online-"

"The Mystic Warlords of Ka-ah online game is a travesty," Sheldon snapped. "I would explain in detail why, but I don't care enough to continue speaking to you."

"Did I tell you he's a character?" Siebert was a bit intoxicated. "C'mon, Cooper, loosen up. We'll get you a drink. Trust me, you don't want to go to one of these things sober. Richard Dawkins is here. He'll talk your _ear_ off."

"Physiologically impossible," Sheldon muttered. "Also, I don't drink."

Penny had given the sum of five thousand dollars to her brother who had absconded with it, from what he could gather. No doubt, that was related to her impending eviction. Penny really needed to stop giving large sums of money to irresponsible men.

Siebert introduced him to Nate who was wearing a shirt that said "American as" and then the logo for Apple Computers and the symbol for pi. Nate was from an educational show about space and physics that Sheldon sometimes watched when he felt like mocking something in the style of Mystery Science Theater. Nate shook his hand but didn't speak. He reminded Sheldon of Raj around women.

"Um…big fan," Nate finally managed to say. "Seriously."

Penny wanted to go back to school. Possibly to study business. Sheldon thought this was a potentially good idea. Except that Penny had never displayed what one might call "follow through." Although she had continued to work at The Cheesecake Factory for the entire time he had known her. If she could display that sort of commitment to school she might have something. He wondered if she wanted to study business to learn better how to run her Penny Blossoms venture.

Siebert introduced him to Roger Whitman. Roger Whitman was the man smoking a cigar (because smoking indoors was inexplicably legal in Las Vegas) and he was blowing smoke in everyone's faces much like Ricky the monkey.

"Roger's from Belnam Books," Siebert said. "They've been publishing some science titles lately. They're very interested. Gentlemen, why don't we get a round?"

"I don't drink alcohol," Sheldon muttered again. But already a cocktail waitress had appeared. It took a tedious number of words to convince them he only wanted a Coke in a tall glass with a lime wedge.

Was Penny still crying? His phone was silent… Was that good or bad?

Roger the editor said, "So what kind of experiments are you at work on right now? I know everyone's very interested since that paper Stephen Hawking has spoken of, right? Anyway, that's what Siebert here tells us."

Sheldon was about to open his mouth and (figuratively) bite the man's head off when Nate said, "He doesn't do _experiments. _ He's a theoretician."

"He is correct," Sheldon said. He checked his phone in case he'd received a call or text and hadn't felt the vibration. Nothing. He ignored the conversation and knocked out a text to Penny. He had the urge to tap out "you're not stupid" but instead he wrote:

**Everything alright?**

Roger went on about niche markets, appealing to a wider audience, internet marketing… Sheldon tuned out until Nate leaned over and in a conspiratorial whisper asked him a very technical question about his Higgs Boson paper. Sheldon tried to answer properly over the noise of the music but from his seat across from Nate it wasn't very comfortable. Ben was sitting next to Nate playing with his phone, looking bored.

Sheldon stood and waved a hand at Ben. "You're in my spot."

Ben blinked at him and said to Siebert, "Is this a mad scientist thing?"

"I am not a _mad_ scientist, my mother had me tested. Get up. You're in my spot."

Ben shrugged and moved.

Sheldon was scribbling equations onto cocktail napkins as Nate hammered him with questions and praise when Sheldon's phone vibrated. His photon turned into a squiggle and he whipped out his phone.

Penny had texted: **Yes, great! Almost ready –see you soon :-D**

Sheldon frowned. How could she be crying one minute and pretend to be happy the next? Women were odd.

The cocktail waitress reappeared with their drinks. Roger Whitman took his martini and said to her, "Easy on the water I hope, doll?"

"Oh, sorry. I don't know, I didn't make it," she said.

"Guy's a physicist," Whitman said, nodding at Sheldon. "We're from a science conference."

"Oh... That's nice." The waitress looked uncomfortable. She handed Sheldon his Coke.

"You know what a physicist is?"

"Yeah, sort of-"

"Sure you do, doll. Why don't you spend some time with us, huh?"

Siebert looked edgy. Whitman put his arm around the waitress's waste. "C'mooon, babe."

The waitress rolled her eyes and eased out of his grasp. "Sorry, sir. Can't do that." She nodded at the group of them. "Have fun at your science thingy."

Whitman cackled and watched her walk away. "Science thingy! Aw, that's how I like em', huh? Dumb and pretty."

The cocktail waitress was blonde. When she turned around for one insane moment, Sheldon looked at her and saw Penny's face.

Sheldon set down his Coke and got out of his seat and then just stood there uncertainly. He loosened his tie.

Whitman was cackling. Sheldon licked his lips. This was the time to be a gentleman. He should say something. Stand-up for Penny. And women like Penny. He should cut the man down. Easier vocalized than enacted. Sheldon was also notoriously untalented at trash-talk. The men were all looking up at him.

"Cooper?" Siebert said. "Problem?"

"Yes!" Sheldon said. He licked his lips again and pointed at Whitman. "You... You are..._unevolved_!" It was the worst thing he could think of to say to somebody really. At least on the spot. "You are a discredit to academia and...and to humanity!" He started to walk away and turned back, leaning down to hiss, "Also traditional publishing is on its way to implosion! I'm going to self-publish an e-book!"

Siebert shouted after him as he stalked out of the nightclub.

Penny had said on the phone that she might move back to Nebraska.

Sheldon could not allow that to happen.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Bellagio Peregrination Chapter 4**

**Disclaimer**: I don't own this show. Chuck Lorre owns this show.

**Note**: Long chapter! But I couldn't stand to cut it anywhere. I like to think there's an alternate universe where Parsons and Cuoco act out this chapter and I want to go there. Also, I hope you guys don't hate how I dealt with the Amy situation.

**Chapter 4**

Penny gave her name to the woman at one of the big tables at the entrance to The Tower Ballroom and took a deep breath. It had taken her a while to make herself presentable after that horrendous phone call with her mother. On the upside the Audrey Hepburn dress looked fantastic on her and her hair seemed to be cooperating. A little black and pink clutch purse hung from a strap on her wrist. The ballroom was all dinner tables and buffet lines. Half the people in the room were dressed more formally like her, the other half were dressed more like, well, the boys on an average day. There was a program and Penny was pleasantly surprised to see that there might actually be some fun stuff to see at this conference. Maybe she would put in an appearance at the next two nights of activities after all. Having become a somewhat savvy Hollywood person she could see that some of the stuff had little to do with science and more to do with grabs at demographics. There were the expected presentations on various scientific fields and how they related to media and entertainment. There were also presentations on green screen effects and holograms.

"Geez," Penny muttered. "S'like ComicCon or something."

And what the hell did The Mystic Warlords of Ka-ah MMORPG have to do with science? Penny shuddered at the memory of attempting to enjoy that horrible game with the guys.

"Ech. Travesty."

The text from Sheldon had been weird. At the time she'd still been sitting on her bed trying to will herself to stop crying. How the hell did he know something was wrong? If Sheldon Cooper was telepathic, she would have one more problem to deal with. Correction; the _world_ would have one more problem.

Where was the adorable crazy man anyway?

She kept an eye out on her way to the bar. If there was one thing she needed, it was a drink. Well, that and enough money to pay her rent, go to school, start a fledgling homemade craft business, pay off her credit cards...

One Cosmo later, she still had not found Sheldon.

Wanting to pace herself, she followed it with a Shirley Temple (because it was cuter than a club soda) and a small plate of cocktail shrimp. Guys kept staring and asking her if she was a hostess from G4 or ScyFy.

_No, but that would be an awesome job._

The thought of it just reminded her of all her problems in Pasadena and her potentially worse yet somehow easier problems in Omaha. Suddenly the enormous ballroom felt much too stuffy and she wandered out onto a balcony to get some air.

"Oh! This is where I am." It hadn't occurred to her that the Tower Ballroom was in _the_ tower, at the very top of The Bellagio with a gorgeous view of the Vegas lights and the big fountain in front of the hotel.

"Penny."

She turned to see Sheldon approaching her from the other side of the balcony. He still looked good in his suit, albeit slightly disheveled.

"Hey!" She said lightly. "I've been looking for ya."

"I'm sorry."

"Oh, that's okay." She held up her plate of food. "I have shrimp."

"No, I mean I _apologize-"_

"For what?" He stepped into the light and she saw that his eyes were a little red. "Oh my God, sweetie. Have you been crying or something? What's the matter?"

"You're not stupid," he said.

The joke was on her lips before she even processed the words. "That's no reason to cry."

He twitched. "If that is what is known in comedic terms as a callback, it's not funny."

He was upset. Penny wasn't accustomed to seeing him this upset when it wasn't accompanied by anger or petulance. "Moonpie, what happened?"

"You're...sad," he said carefully. He was staring at the ground. "You're quite distressed."

She swallowed and tears threatened to well up. She shook her head quickly so that her hair whipped her face. "No! No, I'm not! I have shrimp!"

"Penny, I...went back to retrieve my phone. From our room. I heard you speaking to your mother..."

Penny rose her eyebrows. There was a bench behind her, which was a convenient place for her to sit down since her knees felt a little weak. "Oooh," she said in an exhale.

He sat down next to her. "I believe you have been laboring under a misapprehension."

"Have I?" She muttered. She put her shrimp and drink down beside her and crossed her arms. How much had he heard? It made her feel so pathetic. Sad pathetic Penny with the sad pathetic life.

"You are under the impression that you're unintelligent. Are you not?"

Penny did a little double take. "Um..."

"I have disparaged your intelligence on several occasions. Or...possibly more than several. To the same degree that I have disparaged the intelligence of people far more intelligent than you."

She frowned and eyed him warily. "'Kay..."

"I had not considered... I was not _aware_ that..."

She rolled her eyes. This could take all night. "Sheldon, it's okay-"

"_No_, it is not by any means _okay," _he said, his voice rising. "You are under the impression that you're unintelligent. And you're not. I'm partly to blame. And I apologize. Without qualification. You're not stupid, Penny. And your mother shouldn't disparage your intelligence either. And...please don't move to Nebraska."

She might not have lost it if she hadn't looked up into those big blue eyes under the balcony lights. Instead she said, "Sheldon-" She had intended to say more but she started crying _again_ to her dismay just before she threw her arms around his neck and buried her head in his suit.

He tentatively set his hands on her back. "Oh, please don't cry," he said softly. "I lose my mutant powers."

"I don't know what you mean by that," she said in a choked voice.

"That's because you have no access to my internal monologue," he mumbled into her hair. "There there..."

She smiled into his tie. Somehow coming from Sheldon, that actually was comforting. Because it meant he was trying.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"Would you like a hot beverage?"

"No," she chuckled. "That's okay."

"Would you like a cold beverage?"

"I have one."

She broke away from him and wiped tears from her eyes with her knuckles, checking for running mascara, even though she knew very well it was waterproof.

"Oh," Sheldon said. He handed her the decorative black handkerchief from his suit pocket.

She sniffed and took it, patting her cheeks. "Pretty suave."

"Well, I've seen all the James Bond films."

"I've only seen the Daniel Craig ones." She fiddled with the hankie.

"That should be corrected." He frowned at her. "How long have you been under threat of eviction?"

She took a deep breath. "Oh, boy. Look, sweetie. You have a big banquet in there and you have to go...network and stuff. Don't worry about me. Go get your book deal."

"Networking in the socioeconomic sense, at a function of this sort, is as enticing to me as another venture inside 's dressing room. There is also the possibility that I've angered the only editor who would be interested in publishing an in-depth manuscript on the Higgs Boson. I'm more interested in the presentations over the next two nights."

Penny nodded and sniffed. "So what'd you say to the guy? The editor?"

"I merely pointed out his cretinous attitudes towards women. Indirectly, I suppose I was defending your honor. In an ersatz neo-chivalric sense."

She grinned. She had to get Sheldon out to Vegas more often. That was certain. The thought she might have to move to Nebraska which would make that impossible made her stomach drop.

"If you want to get out of here," she said, "I've got kind of a great idea. We need the car."

"I dislike surprises," Sheldon said, fiddling with his seatbelt. "If your intention is to execute me and dispose of my body in the dead of night, I would ask to be blindfolded. I would additionally request a cigarette as an act of theatrical convention. Also, you must record my last words."

"A cigarette!" Penny giggled.

"A candy cigarette obviously."

Once the visual was in her head, Penny started giggling uncontrollably.

They were headed back down the I-15. Thinking ahead, Penny had stolen two plastic champagne cups from the banquet on their way out and then they had retrieved the car. They had stopped at a convenience store where she picked up a bottle of Crush and two bags of gummy bears.

"I'm shocked you don't have your last words written out already," Penny said. "Or maybe typed on a wallet sized card in a tiny font. And laminated. On hand just in case."

Sheldon's eyes lit up. "That's an _excellent _idea."

"Always glad to be of service."

"What _are_ we doing? This was not on the itinerary."

"Star gazing."

He rolled his eyes. "This close to Las Vegas? A proper view of the night sky is improbable at such a close proximity to that amount of light pollution."

"I know a good spot. I've gone there with my girlfriends before. It won't be…ideal. Still be a better view than L.A."

She pulled over at a rest stop; a few scattered picnic tables and a big stone platform in front of several lines of benches. She didn't know exactly what the stone platform was for other than impromptu stage performances in the middle of a desert or possibly human sacrifice.

"Here? You're stopping _here_?" Sheldon's voice rose.

"It's…reasonably well lit." Penny hedged.

"I can almost instantaneously calculate the odds of us being murdered here, most likely by a passing trucker on a methamphetamine binge. They are uncomfortably high."

"Never tell me the odds," she muttered. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel.

"Yes, well done," Sheldon said, rolling his eyes. "Rattlesnakes. Coyotes. Scorpions…"

"Oh! Hang on. Leonard left some stuff in the trunk…" She hopped out, ignoring Sheldon's fearful yelps.

When she appeared outside the passenger side window, Sheldon looked up to see Penny in her fetching black lace and pink frock holding a fully loaded paintball gun immediately reminding him of both Sarah Connor and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Yes, he decided, she would definitely fight zombie hoards. Possibly for fun.

He opened his door, still a bit hesitant.

"I got your back, Jack," she barked. "Grab the grub."

He picked up the bag of soda and candy and the blanket they'd conveniently left in the car, and she led him to the stone platform.

He said, "I've decided you're accompanying us to ComicCon next year."

"Oh I am, am I?"

"Yes. You'd make a convincing Starbuck. Would you be willing to cut your hair?"

"Frak no."

"I suppose you could be Starbuck when she was held prisoner on New Caprica by Leoben Conoy, the Number Two humanoid Cylon. But then you wouldn't be wearing the uniform. Which would somewhat defeat the purpose."

"Sweetie," she said handing him the gun and climbing up on top of the stone platform, "I don't even know that I'll be around next summer. I might have to move back to Omaha. I know you hate change but-"

"You're not returning to Nebraska," Sheldon simply. She took the food and paintball gun from him and helped him climb up. "My preferences on the subject are irrelevant."

"Ya..wha… You're _what_? Sheldon Cooper's preferences are irrelevant?"

He spread the blanket out on the platform and Penny was about to sit down when he put up a hand stay her, taking his time straightening out the blanket, changing the angle, straightening it again and then finding his spot.

"Only because I'm confident I can refute your reasoning," he said. Penny rose a challenging eyebrow at him and he held up two fingers. "_Two_ doctorates, Penny."

She sat down on the blanket and took off her heels, wiggling her pained toes in the soft fleece. "Sheldon, I'm broke. And I'm not borrowing any more money from you and Leonard. Time for me to grow up."

Sheldon sat down cross legged on the blanket and folded his hands in his lap. "Your definition of maturity includes moving back into your parent's home?"

She cleared her throat. "Well…for a while. To start with."

"Into the childhood home where your mother disparages your intelligence and your brother takes advantage of your generosity?" He had said it as a simple matter of fact.

Penny looked up sharply. "Okay, well my brother won't be there because he took off and no one knows where he is. My mother…will be there. Yes. But if I can just get _ahead_. Just for a minute…" He started to open his mouth and she sighed. "Not a literal minute. If I can just get a foothold… Maybe I could go back to school. Do something…useful."

"Given the fragmentary nature of your end of the phone call to your mother, I was forced to piece together data which might remain incomplete." Penny ripped open a bag of gummy bears and poured some into his waiting hand. "Thank you. But it did sound like you were considering returning to school to study business. I wondered if you were planning on revisiting your failed attempt at entrepreneurship vis-a-vis Penny Blossoms?"

"Wouldn't necessarily have failed," she muttered bitterly. "If Leonard had taken the stupid one-day rush off the website those nice gay people wouldn't have demanded a discount because I had to cancel their second order."

"That doesn't answer the question."

"Okay, yes. I was thinking about it." She nibbled on the head of a green gummy bear. "I've been making other stuff. Kind of. Other than the Penny Blossoms. Even busted out the old sewing machine." Sheldon was astonished and Penny smirked. "Yes, Sheldon. I can sew. I grew up on a farm. Skills of the hill folk and all. I just thought... I dunno. It's probably just a pipe dream."

_Pipe dream._ The phrase bothered him.

Sheldon shrugged. "I suppose I'd have to see one of these new creations before I could decide for myself."

Penny pursed her lips. She took the little clutch purse off her wrist and handed it to him. It was shaped like rectangle with a silver zipper. It was just big enough for the essentials, constructed of a leathery black vinyl, and decorated with two appliqued stylized pink robots and a series of handmade glittery pink fabric flowers. Sheldon just frowned at her.

"I made that." She said.

Sheldon's frowned deepened. He looked closely at the purse, turning it over in his hands. He unzipped it and carefully unpacked its contents over Penny's yelps. He inspected the inside, the stitching, the robot applique, the handmade flowers. He tugged at the zipper.

"Cut it out!" Penny said, grabbing at her creation.

"I'm just testing the tensile strength."

"It's a purse, Sheldon! Not...something I can't think of that's supposed to be stronger than a purse!"

He stopped tugging at the purse and looked at her. "You constructed this yourself? Are you certain?"

"Hey!" Penny barked. "I used to sew all the time, I'll have you know. S'just...then I came out here and started auditioning and clubbing and playing Halo... Plus buying stuff? Way easier than sewing!"

"These are robots." He pointed to the applique.

"True."

"You _made_ this?"

She rolled her eyes. "Yes! You don't have to be _so_ surprised!"

He was truly befuddled. "I don't understand why you've been pursuing acting all this time. I've seen you act." He held up the purse. "You're much better at this."

"Thank you. Sort of. I mean okay, it would be nice. To make pretty things that I like and get paid for it. Doesn't mean it's practical to stay here and keep dreaming and failing."

Sheldon felt a surge of adrenaline for the second time that night.

"Practical. _Practical_?" Sheldon cleared his throat and stood up suddenly. Penny looked up at him, framed by a dark sky cluttered with stars. He pointed at the sliver of moon above them. "Penny, observe the moon. We have _walked_ on it. Does that sound practical? Two billion years ago we were cells. We didn't become multicellular organisms for another five hundred million years after that. And now I have an app on my phone that streams Deep Space Nine via Netflix where ever I am at any time! Does that sound practical? Does the Copenhagen Interpretation sound practical? Do you know how fast we're moving at this very moment? That we're spinning on the earth's axis at one thousand miles per hour and orbiting the sun at sixty-seven thousand miles per hour? Yet you feel as if you're standing still? Does that sound _practical_ according to your troglodytic mother's no doubt mundane perception of the world? Do you have any idea how big our universe is? Do you think our understanding of it could ever even have been considered if our criteria for a hypothesis was that it first be considered _practical_?" He knelt down in front of her and looked her right in the eye. "Do you truly believe that if you return to Nebraska and live in your mother's house, that you will do anything other than what you're doing right now but without the benefit of friends or...Halo night or...or my expertise on the workings of the universe? You will not blossom there, Penny. You will _wilt_." He cleared his throat and tilted his head. "Figuratively speaking."

Penny was sitting on her heels now and he had knelt very close to her. The light was making stars in her eyes again and her lips were parted. He could not begin to read her wide-eyed expression but when she leaned forward slightly, he was absolutely certain for a moment that he was having an aneurysm. She sat back and he finally breathed.

"You see all this stuff at once, don't you?" She whispered. "Feel all of it... You really do have a beautiful mind. That must be exhausting."

He sat cross legged again and looked away from her so he could concentrate. "All you require, fundamentally, is money."

"A practical concern-"

"Please do not use that word in my presence again."

"I'm not taking anymore money from you or Leonard."

"I agree," he sat, stroking his chin. "The amount we could afford to give you would only be a short term solution to a long term problem. Which, oddly, is also a pop-psychological definition of suicide. You require funds for tuition, rent, the start-up costs for a business, and living expenses... I don't have enough savings to comfortably make that type of loan..."

"Jesus," she muttered. "You would too, wouldn't you?"

He had an idea. It was elementary really. But if he explained it to her, no doubt she would argue with him, citing her ingrained sense of mid-western pride and societal convention.

So instead he said, "Did you know the gummy bear was invented in Germany in 1920 where it was called a gummibärchen?"

Penny poured Crush into their plastic champagne glasses as Sheldon pontificated on the origins of various candies while repacking her clutch purse.

He finished his story on the history of salt water taffy and she said, "So who invented the PEZ dispenser?"

"The candy was invented in Vienna in 1927. But character heads weren't added to the dispensers until 1955." Sheldon took a sip of Crush and rose an eyebrow. "A lot of good candy came out of Central Europe in the 1920's. That's why I think they're such a whimsical people. Outside of that pesky third reich business."

"Hey, Sheldon..." Penny sat cross legged as modestly as she could and leaned on her hand. "What happened with Amy?"

Sheldon sat up straight with a start. "What? Nothing! Nothing happened with Amy! She's otherwise engaged-"

"For the foreseeable future," Penny finished, nodding. "Yeah, that's not really an answer. Look, I'm just curious because she said I was her best friend and she hasn't spoken to me in weeks. I mean what is it? You guys break up? Was there an act of sexless dispassionate murder? It's killin' me."

He licked his lips. "It is not a secret."

"Great, then tell me."

"It's not a secret, but I _choose_ not to divulge that information."

Penny frowned at him. "Sweetie, are you saying it's not a secret because you hate keeping secrets so you're trying to trick your brain into thinking it's _not _a secret so you don't have to worry about not telling anyone even though you do actually plan to not tell anyone?"

Sheldon's face twitched like mad. "Absolutely not. That's absurd and irrational."

"Sheldon, pleeeease tell me."

"Penny, nothing happened."

"Pleeeease."

"No."

"Fine. I'll tell you a secret first." Penny sat up and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "Leonard and I broke up. Over a month ago."

Sheldon tilted his head. "That seems unlikely. When Leonard's relationships with women come to their inevitable and catastrophic conclusion, he usually sulks about singing banal pop songs like the howling wolves of a pack mourning the loss of a member to a mountain lion. Though Leonard's musical interpretations are far less melodious. Did you know that all wolves howl in the Key of E? The same as the echolocation of whales and dolphins?"

"It's true," Penny said with a shrug. "But we're fine. I mean the fact that we're both not more upset kind of proves it was never going to work out. We're all still friends. The only reason we didn't tell you is 'cause we didn't want you to worry about like friendship fallout and all that crap with all the big career stuff you've got going on."

Sheldon counted out three gummy bears and tried to figure out if the end of Penny and Leonard's relationship was good or bad for the sanctity of his routines and general well being.

Penny said, "Do you...have any particular feelings about...?" She was muttering. He had no idea what she was talking about. She heaved a sigh. "So! You and Amy-"

Warmth flooded Sheldon's cheeks. "There is no me and Amy-"

"So you _did_ break up!"

"I can neither confirm nor deny-"

"Hey, I told you about me and Leonard, that means you have to tell me about you and Amy!"

"Excuse me, I did not enter into that agreement. Nor will I."

"But...but it's a non-optional social convention!" Penny said. "It's...reciprocity! Secret for a secret."

"It's _not_ a secret and-"  
"Sheldon..." He glanced up and saw that she was making Soft Kitty Face.

Sheldon felt that goofy flip in his brain that made him worry he might lose all capacity for abstract thought when she made that face. "That is _low_," he said.

"You handed me the ammunition, buddy. I'm just usin' it." She rose an eyebrow. "Seriously. I'm her friend and I'm worried."

He rolled his eyes. "There was...an incident. As a result, Amy said that she needed...some time. Away from our circle of friends."

"Okay. Because why?" Penny killed her cup of Crush. "You guys broke up, didn't you?"

Sheldon squirmed. "We did, in fact, terminate the Relationship Agreement."

She sighed. "Ah. I'm sorry, Sheldon."

"I'm quite well. The causal event caused me such confusion, I believe it overwhelmed any sense of grief." Penny only looked more intensely interested and he winced.

"Confusion? Sheldon, seriously. I'm not going to tell anyone."

He emitted a breathy laugh.

"No, I promise!" She insisted. "Not something so important. I won't even tell Leonard."

Sheldon held out his champagne glass. "Hit me."

Penny dutifully poured him some Crush, and he threw it back. "Hit me again." She poured him some more Crush and he threw that back. "Hit me again."

"Sheldon!"

"Alright! Three months ago Amy and I...advanced the...physical aspects of our relationship."

Penny's eyebrows shot up. "Aha."

"During the course of one particularly...amorous..encounter, Amy

produced a vocalization the context of which would've made any further romantic progress unavoidably...moot."

"Okay, I _think_ you just said that Amy said something weird while you were fooling around. Like what? You don't like dirty talk, is that it?" Penny gasped. "Oh! Was it something kinky? She always struck me as kind of-"

"She said somebody else's name," Sheldon finally said.

Penny's mouth dropped open. "Oh. Oooh, Sheldon. I'm so sorry. That's the worst. Although, I've only been the one saying the wrong name. Whose name was it? Oh my God, it wasn't Stewart was it?"

Sheldon just smirked at her. "Despite my ineptitude for understanding sarcasm, even I would have to say the dramatic irony inherent in this situation is almost physically stifling."

"What're you talking about?"

"She said _your_ name."

"Oh," Penny breathed. "_Oh_. Ooooh no. Oh my God."

"Mmm. Any one of _those_ vocalizations would have been preferable. Even the negation."

"What did you _say_?"

Sheldon shrugged. "I said I'm not Penny, I'm Sheldon. Then she began to weep. Copiously. There was a lengthy discussion about latent homosexual tendencies. Bisexual proclivities. We terminated our relationship. I offered a non-disclosure agreement which she declined. Then she said she needed several months to quote 'find herself' and she hoped we would remain friends."

Penny sank her head in her hands. "Wow. Wowzers. Well, I...I apologize?"

"I don't see why you should apologize," Sheldon said. "As I assume you do not reciprocate her feelings."

"No!" Penny's head snapped up. "I...don't swing that way. I just feel weirdly responsible. It's _kind_ of totally unsurprising though. Oh, poor Ames! I've got to talk to her-"

"No! I promised I wouldn't tell you!" He insisted.

"I know, but... Look, when we get back to Pasadena, we're figuring this out. Even if it's a little awkward or something, she's my friend and she needs me." Penny grimaced and swatted him in the shoulder, making him yelp. "You should've told me this before!"

"_Excuse_ me, my two best friends terminated _their_ relationship apparently weeks ago and kept it a secret. I knew that series of short silences on the stairwell were awkward silences. And here I thought I was off my game."

Penny frowned, sheepish. "Sorry. We were trying to do the right thing."

"Ah. So was I."

"Fair enough."

"I admit, I do feel a sense of relief having told someone of this experience."

"Good. You know I'm always here for you, sweetie." Penny smiled and then shuddered.

"You're cold." He took off his suit jacket. "In the interest of continuing the chivalric tradition..."

"Oh no, I'm fine," Penny said, still shivering.

Sheldon held onto his jacket. "Are you having a mild seizure?"

"No."

"Then you're cold." He handed her the jacket. She put it on and gazed at him with something similar to but not quite a smile on her face. He leaned back on his hands. "I can't read that expression. Should I be able to?"

His coat swam on her and she shrugged. "I don't remember ever seeing you in just a shirt and tie before. You look so... I don't know."

"Like a man wearing a shirt and tie?'

She tilted her head and her smiled widened. "_Yeah_."

Penny lay down on her back. "Hey, you know we came her to look at stars and we haven't been."

"Does that require lying down?" Sheldon looked wary.

"Yup. Gotta get the whole scope. It's great." She patted the spot next to her.

Penny watched Sheldon glance around and he mumbled, "Where's the paintball gun?"

It was right by her hand and she patted it. "Got it right here."

"Well...alright." He lay down and squirmed, trying to get comfortable. "No lumbar support whatsoever," he grumbled.

"I thought it was good for your back to lie on a hard flat surface?"

"I dispute that claim."

Penny was no astronomer, but she thought the view of the night sky was pretty mind-blowing; an endless sea of stars. There were so few visible from Los Angeles, it was easy to forget how crowded space seemed.

She swept her hand above their heads with flourish. "Okay, universe guy. Teach me."

"You _want_ me to speak at length about astronomy?"

"That's why we came here, goofball. Show me constellations or something."

"Do you know where Ursa Major is?"

"Ursa..."

"The Big Dipper."

"I've seen it before but it always takes me a couple minutes to find it. Like one of those old Magic Eye pictures."

He pointed at what appeared to Penny to be a totally random bunch of stars. "I'm pointing at the end of the handle. Do you see?"

She tried to follow the line of his finger. "Um..." She scooted closer to him to get a better look at exactly where he was pointing.

"It's a line of four stars and the ladle formation is under it."

"Mmm..."

"Here." He gently took her hand and pointed her finger for her. "There. Do you see it?"

Her breath caught and she glanced sideways at him. He seemed so calm.

"Penny, do you see it?"

She followed the line of their fingers and suddenly the Big Dipper stood out. "Oh. Yeah! Yeah, I see it!"

He named the stars. He told her how slaves had used the Big Dipper to escape north. He pointed out Ursa Minor and Cassiopeia and Draco and named all their stars, becoming more and more enthusiastic. He told her about red dwarfs and white dwarfs and the speed of light. Sometimes she looked at the constellations he was pointing at and sometimes she just looked at him looking into space. He couldn't spot any planets. He said they should've come in March. When he finally lowered their arms, Penny didn't quite let go and if he didn't notice, she didn't say anything, and tried valiantly to ignore the thudding of her heart and thought she probably shouldn't have admitted to Leonard over a great tequila-spiked conversation about everything that she had a big stupid ridiculous crush on Sheldon Cooper (crush...okay, she downplayed it a little), because Leonard kept teasing her about it even after saying that it was either utterly insane or possibly a brilliant idea.

When he finally stopped talking, Penny said softly, "So tell me something really cool about the universe?"

He turned his head to face her. Good Lord, he was lying so close! It didn't seem to be bothering him.

"That's a bit broad. Would you like to narrow your terms?"

She pushed her lips out and said, "Mmm, nope. Just tell me something awesome."

He searched her eyes for a moment and turned his head back to the sky. "Well... Did you know that all the elements on earth, except for the very lightest like hydrogen and helium, were created in the hearts of massive stars? Elements were created through nuclear fusion and when the stars went supernova, the particles scattered and became planets and life forms. So the iron in your blood and the calcium in your bones, that's all stardust."

She stared at his profile. "I'm made of stardust?"

He turned his head again to look at her. "Of course, you're made of stardust. We're all stardust, Penny."

She breathed out slowly. "Doesn't sound practical at all."

He seemed to be searching her eyes again. Penny was dying to know exactly what he was looking for.

He said, "I had an absurd thought today. But given your romantic proclivities, in the Keatsian sense of the word, you may choose to construe it as poetic."

_Keatsian_, Penny thought. _Keats comma John. Dead Poet's Society. Gather ye rosebuds. Romantics. Got it._

"Tell me," she said.

He seemed reluctant. He stared at the stars again. "I freely admit, it's completely irrational, but occasionally I see a particularly star-like twinkle in your eyes and I thought...well, perhaps Penny is composed of more stardust than normal people. It's scientifically perverse. I don't know why I thought of it."

Penny had been with a lot of guys (too many, but fewer than thirty-one) and she had heard a lot of lines and a lot of nice words that were genuine and not lines at all. But she was absolutely certain that Sheldon Lee Cooper had just said the sexiest thing she had ever heard in all her days and she found herself short of breath as a result.

Penny sat up and leaned on her elbow, hovering over him. "I need you to promise me something right now."

He looked frightened. "Alright."

"If you have anymore thoughts that you consider absurd but that I might consider poetic? I _require _you to tell me what they are. In detail. Non-optional."

He blinked at her. "Alright."

_So I can write them down_, she thought. _Possibly in calligraphy. On vellum. And tie the stacks with a satin ribbon. And put them in a blue box all covered with silver stars._

"Good," she said softly. She lay back down. "I googled eidetic memory once."

"And people say I'm the one who speaks in non-sequiturs."

"Everything I read said that no one remembers everything just because they were there when it happened. A person with eidetic memory has to be paying particular attention to remember an entire conversation or what you saw and all that stuff. You don't automatically record everything and just play it back later. Which for starters, means that when you say you have no interest in what people are saying, you don't really mean it because you can usually remember it later word for word."

Sheldon frowned. "That may not be completely untrue."

"So I have a very important question."

"Alright."

"What did Howard Wolowitz order for dinner on the night of October fourth of 2010?"

Sheldon frowned at her. "That is an odd question."

"Answer, please?"

"If we're not eating pizza, I think he usually orders lasagna."

"Did he order lasagna that night?"

"I don't know," he said, as if it were ridiculous. "Is there an ongoing investigation?"

"Yeah, kind of. What was I wearing that night?" She turned over and lay on her side facing him.

"Black trousers and a green blouse with asymmetrically placed silver embellishments. Your earrings were seashells." He was so matter of fact.

"And what was Raj wearing?"

He shrugged. "I'm guessing there was a sweater vest involved."

"And what was I wearing on February seventeenth when I told you about the tiramisu?"

"The same shorts you were wearing when I took you to the hospital after you slipped in the shower and a yellow t-shirt that I hadn't seen before and pink flip flops. You had a white Penny Blossom in your hair."

She bit her lip; heart thud thud thuddin' away. "What was Leonard wearing that day?"

"I don't know, I..." He _finally_ seemed to catch on and stared at her blankly. "Just because... I'm not sure what your point is."

Penny smiled cheekily and sat up. She grabbed her purse and took out her phone. "The point is, let's dance."

"Oh Lord, Penny. Not that again."

"Yeah, yeah," Penny muttered, opening the Pandora app on her phone. "Sheldon never dances, except when he does. Up, puppy."

She turned the volume up as high as it would go and the tinny strains of an old jazz standard started playing. She stood and held out her hand expectantly. She made Soft Kitty Face and Sheldon rolled his eyes, getting to his feet. He took her hand. The song was just swingy enough and not too slow. They danced a simple two step. Sheldon twirled her around when she saw the corner of mouth turn up, she could not contain her grin. She felt like she was in a 40's dance hall. On the moon. They danced to Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole and Louis Armstrong.

"Meemaw used to play this kind of music."

"Really?" She squeezed his hand. "Tell me...?"

"In her kitchen after church," Sheldon said. "When I was little. I'd read The Flash while she was baking snickerdoodles. Sometimes I'd draw my own comics with my crayons. Meemaw said it was the sort of music she used to dance to with my grandpa when they were young."

"Please tell me you danced with your meemaw?"

Sheldon glanced down at their feet, shy. "I did."

Glenn Miller's "Moonlight Serenade" came on and slowed things down. She let go of his hand and couldn't believe it when his face fell until she rested her hands on his shoulders. He seemed uncertain and she took his hands and placed them on her waist under his jacket. They danced close and Sheldon never once stepped on her toes. By the time Billie Holiday started singing, they were almost cheek to cheek, just swaying, and she could feel every puff of his breath.

_Your eyes of blue your kisses too  
I never knew what they could do  
I can't believe you're in love with me_

"Penny..."

"Mmm?"

"You're not moving to Nebraska," he murmured.

She swallowed. "Because..."

"Because I said so," he said, his voice cracking. "And I break all ties."

"Okay," she whispered.

"Do you promise?"

"Yes." She gasped a little.

"Do you pinky swear?"

She took one of his hands and hooked her pinky with his. "Pinky swear."

Their noses touched. Penny's eyes slipped shut and she felt the top of his lip graze hers...just before two enormous headlights blazed in their faces and an eighteen wheeler pulled over at the rest stop. Startled, they broke apart.

"Nuts," Sheldon muttered.

"_Balls_," Penny said. To her delight, he looked utterly forlorn. She grabbed the paintball gun, her phone, and her purse, and nodded at him. "C'mon, moonpie. Let's blow this pop stand."

She wasn't so put out. Even without a kiss, it was the most romantic night of her life.

In the car, Sheldon was quiet and eventually fell asleep. They got back to The Bellagio and she gently woke him up. When she finally bothered to check the time, she couldn't believe how late it was. They didn't speak much on the way back up to the room, but it wasn't awkward. In the living room of the suite, she wished him goodnight and pecked him on the cheek, leaving him staring after her as she danced into her room still wearing his jacket, her heels hanging off her fingers, and humming Billie Holiday.

He had twelve missed calls from Siebert.


	5. Chapter 5

** The Bellagio Peregrination Chapter 5**

**Disclaimer**: I don't own this show. Chuck Lorre owns this show.

**Note**: Thanks for the reviews! I love instant gratification.

** Chapter 5**

Sheldon missed a proper night's sleep and woke up long before Penny would ever even consider getting out of bed.

He had work to do.

He brushed his teeth and ordered oatmeal from room service, because, by golly, it was still oatmeal day even in Vegas. The itinerary for the day would have to be completely revised. He had planned to work on a paper and read a few journals before visiting a nearby comic bookstore, but that was out the window. He made some quick calculations in his head and wrote down a number. He crossed out the number and wrote a larger number. Why be conservative?

He showered. The weather app on his phone said it would be ninety-five degrees by eleven o'clock and he groaned. Feeling half naked, he skipped his usual long sleeved undershirt and dressed in his favorite Flash tee and dark brown pants. He would be outside more than he generally ever considered necessary so he slathered on sunscreen and grabbed the UV blocking shades he'd brought at Target just for the trip. He emptied out his duffel bag and squeezed it down as small as it could go inside his messenger bag. Finally, he wrote Penny a note and then he left the suite. In the elevator he started thinking about Penny's soft cheek next to his and the way she'd looked at him when he'd told her was made of stardust. He ended up in the parking garage and had to take the elevator up to the lobby again.

He left The Bellagio, slipped on his shades, and headed to Harrah's.

It was six o'clock in the morning.

* * *

Penny woke up giddy, then sad when the reality of money and problems settled into her brain like it always did. Then she thought of Sheldon's upper lip and stardust and she was giddy again. She sighed and rolled out of bed at nine, stretching. She hollered for Sheldon until she found his note on the dining table.

_Penny,_

_ I have some important business to take care of today. I should return at approximately two o'clock in the afternoon. Please take advantage of the complimentary spa treatments if you so desire, and enjoy the sun's harmful UV rays. Charge anything you require to the room._

_ -Sheldon Cooper_

Next to the note there was jug sized bottle of sunscreen.

For a moment, Penny started to think that Sheldon had gotten freaked out by the dancing and the almost-kiss and was now avoiding her, until she remembered that this was Sheldon.

Sheldon didn't play games. Sheldon didn't know what the hell a game was. Penny promptly decided not to worry about it and enjoy her Magic Relaxation Day.

"Why don't I make that a day?" She muttered on her way to the shower. "If Sheldon can have Oatmeal Day, I should have Magic Relaxation Day."

She ate french toast with strawberries for breakfast and ignored the voice mails her mother had left her. The real world intruded on her brain and she sat scribbling numbers concerning debt, rent for a new place, school, money for materials to make purses and hair accessories... The numbers were crazy and she almost started to cry again so she tore the paper up and threw it away.

At the spa she was manicured and pedicured and massaged and milk bathed. She pretended she was a movie star. She felt less like a movie star when she returned to the room to change into her swimsuit only to discover that her trusty old red bikini was pilling like crazy. She hadn't noticed when she had hastily packed it. She just hadn't had the opportunity to wear it in a while nor the means to spend anything on new swimwear.

"Ugh, oh well." She packed up sun screen, a towel, a cover-up, and her lap top and flip flopped her way to the pool.

She put on sunscreen from her own normal-sized bottle (though she couldn't reach her back, she'd have to remember not to turn over) and slipped on her shades. A server came along and she ordered a piňa colada. She sat back and sighed.

"Why can't this be my job?"

Twenty minutes into her poolside session, she took out her laptop and earbuds, bringing up Spotify to listen to Billie Holiday's "I Can't Believe That You're in Love With Me" and "Moonlight Serenade." She made herself a playlist of all the songs they had danced to. She stumbled upon Glenn Miller's version of "Stardust" and added it to the playlist and listening to it, she pretended she was a very glamorous 40's Hollywood ingenue and that Sheldon was the nerdy type of character that Cary Grant had played in "Bringing Up Baby."

Sheldon texted her just to ask how her day was going and she felt all gushy like she was in junior high all over again. She rewrote her text ten times before just telling him she was having a great time by the pool.

Eventually she got a hankering to play Age of Conan (cravings came and went, but she limited herself). Queen Penelope went into battle, but she kept listening to her Stardust playlist. She was quite content.

Then some dude sat down on the pool chair next to her and motioned for her to take out her earbuds.

_Oh, great._

Penny reluctantly removed her earbuds. "Sorry?"

"I said, you're a gamer, huh?" He was around her age and cute. He had blonde spiky hair. His teeth seemed a little too big. He was wearing a Mystic Warlords of Ka-ah MMORPG t-shirt. "Couldn't help but notice. Age of Conan?"

"Yup." Penny stared at him blankly from behind her shades.

"That's funny, just so happens I'm in the business. I'm here for the Science and Media Conference. I'm Ben, G4." He stuck out his hand.

_Oh brother_.

She set her laptop aside and shook his hand weakly. "I'm Penny, Cheesecake Factory."

He laughed too hard. "That's good. So you're not here for the conference?"

"Oh, sort of," she said, sipping her pina colada. "I'm here with my friend. He's a physicist."

His expression darkened slightly. "Oh yeah, physicists. They're...weird. So Penny, I have to say, I don't see a lot of gamers who look like you."

"Oh...well...ya know."

"You from L.A.?"

"Yup." Her pina colada was done for.

_Balls._

"Girl looks like you, waitress in L.A., I'm going to guess you're an actress?" He grinned at her with his big teeth.

She smirked at him and tossed him an ironic tip of the head. "You're not wrong."

"Look, you don't know me. But like I said, I'm in production at G4 and seeing as how we don't see a lot of hot girls into gaming... I think I should tell you we're always looking for hostesses who look, well, like you. You should come in for an audition."

Penny sat up with a start.

_Hello, Ben._

"Really?" It felt weird to have what was turning into a business meeting while wearing a bikini. "Are you serious?"

Ben brightened. "Absolutely! Listen..." He leaned forward and looked at her for a long wretchedly awkward moment during which Penny wasn't sure where the hell she was supposed to look or if he was even looking at her.

Then he put his hand on her thigh.

_Oh, Ben._

"I'm _sure_ we could work somethin' out..." He said.

"Hmm," Penny said, nodding. "I'm sure we could."

She grabbed the middle finger of the hand groping her thigh and pulled it back far enough for him to squawk in pain and stumble off of his chair and onto his knees in front of her.

"Or I could kick your enchanted bunnies up into your lava serpent cavern if you ever come anywhere near me again! _Capiche_?"

"Aaaaah! Yeah yeah! Leggo!"

She loosened her grip and shouted, "Also the Mystic Warlords of Ka-ah online game? It sucked _ass_! Three lousy character designs and you have to pay for an upgrade just to get past level twelve?"

"I didn't design the game!"

"You're wearing the shirt," she sneered.

She let him go and he jumped up. "Yeah well, good luck with the _waitressing_. Crazy bitch."

Penny stood up and made a vaguely threatening move in his direction. He squeaked and ran off. She plopped back into her seat.

"And that's why you don't mess with Queen Penelope," she sighed to herself.

Even so, she couldn't stop imagining what it would be like to host a video game show even though she wasn't _that_ into video games. It probably paid well.

Her server finally came back. She was a petite girl with a black bob of hair. "How you doin' over here?"

Penny smiled at her. "I apparently just gave up a possible future as a cable television personality and all I got was this lousy integrity and self-worth."

"Oooh." The server nodded in understanding. "Sounds like you need another pina colada?"

"Yes, please, thank you."

A few minutes later, Penny was savoring her second drink while fighting dragons, but when she spotted Sheldon making his way toward her, her heart threatened to leap out of her chest and she almost knocked her laptop to the ground.

"Oh crap on a cracker," she muttered. "It's just Sheldon, I see Sheldon all the time."

And to be honest, she had gotten that stomach-flippy feeling before around "just-Sheldon", but the ever increasing suspicion that he felt the same about her that she did him just made everything…a bit more intense.

He approached her, lugging his duffel bag which looked like it was about to pull him into the ground. He was wearing his Flash shirt and shades and he was a little sweaty.

It was kinda sexy.

When he was near, she hopped to her feet and said, "Sheldor the Conqueror! Hey!" Then she felt silly and sat back down.

He looked so odd wearing sunglasses, but he smiled and collapsed in the chair next to her, breathless. "Hello," he said panting.

"Sweetie, you need some water." Penny flagged down a server and demanded a Fiji.

"That would be ideal," Sheldon said, wiping sweat off his forehead.

"Whatcha been up to? What's in the bag?"

"I assure you, it will be explained later," he said. "A second act plot twist, one might say."

"Mysterious."

He looked in her direction, the corners of his mouth quirking up and down. "Penny, you're wearing a bikini." He took off his shades and rubbed his eyes. "Not certain why I felt the need to caption the obvious just now."

The server brought his water and he guzzled the entire bottle. He glanced in Penny's direction and eyed her up and down for the tiniest second before looking away shyly. She felt like was on fire. She sipped her pina colada. He looked away and caught his breath.

"So are you done with what you're doing?" She asked, hopeful. "It's only noon…"

"Not quite. I've mostly been inside but there has been a fair bit of walking involved and this bag has gotten progressively heavier. I thought I would stop here to say hello and avoid heat stroke."

"That was wise."

"I do hope you've been using sunscreen, Penny." He was using his professor's voice.

"I've been using sun_tan_ lotion, because I don't want to be a tomato. Oh! Except…" Penny bit her lip. It was just too good to pass up. Besides which, she did need lotion on her back. "I'd really like to lay on my front but I couldn't reach my back to put on lotion so…"

"Mmm, that's not surprising. The glenohumeral joint is quite flexible but it still doesn't allow for perfect access to the entirety of the vertebral column."

"Yes, sweetie. But that's why God created boys with long fingers." She flattened herself out on her stomach and held out the sunscreen. "Would you?"

"Would I what?"

_Snort._

"Would you _be a lamb_ and rub sunscreen on my back?"

Sheldon just stared at her.

"I have rubbed Vapo on your chest," she said.

"That was different," he mumbled.

She rose an eyebrow. "Really? Why?"

He opened his mouth and she could tell something different than he really meant was coming out. "Penny, I don't think you realize the deleterious harm of ultraviolet rays-"

"That's why I need the _lotion_."

"You're quite tan already. You should go inside."

She squinted at him. Now was as good a time as any to see if Sheldon Cooper was a red blooded American male as she'd always suspected based on the subtlest of hints that he was merely repressing a healthy libido.

"Okay, never mind," she said.

"Excellent."

He started to get up and she said, "One of these cabana guys can do it." She searched the roaming staff quickly and waved at the handsomest man she could see in a uniform. "I'm sure he won't mind rubbing his hands all over my body."

"N-n-no _nooo_," Sheldon stuttered. He was trying hard to sound condescending, but she knew better. "_Wait_, Penny, this is Las Vegas? A town so depraved it is officially classified as a city of sin_?_ Anyone here could be crawling with transmutable diseases."

She tilted her head and pushed her lips out, staring at him expectantly.

His jaw clenched. "_Fine_." He dug a travel-sized bottle of Purell out of his messenger bag and sanitized his hands. Which she realized, was more to her benefit.

Her hormones did a little victory dance and she lay down on her stomach. Feeling saucy, she unhooked the top of her bikini and watched for his reaction.

He dropped the sunscreen and his eye twitched. "I'm fairly certain public nudity is still illegal."

"This is allowed." She put on her most innocent voice. "What's the matter? You've peeked."

He picked up the dropped bottle, sitting down on the edge of her chair, and she watched him over her shoulder. He squeezed a glob of sunscreen into his hand and made a series of spastically awkward movements as he approached the situation that made her giggle into her arm.

She stopped giggling when he touched her.

He started with the most tentative dab of lotion on the exact middle of her back and smoothed it in. It was like that for a while and though she was sure Sheldon was just tentative, it felt like the worst but most delicious kind of teasing. It didn't feel like he was covering much territory either, but being rather haphazard. But it felt gooood. She closed her eyes and hooked her ankles together.

He started rubbing lotion in with three fingers, venturing upward, and she sighed a little.

_Why couldn't this be _his_ job?_

He covered her shoulder blades and gently moved her hair to take care of the back of her neck. She had predicted that he would be quick and sloppy about it to get it over with. But this was Sheldon Cooper. Working knowledge of the universe and all. A thing had to be done right. He finally started using his whole hand and Penny rubbed her ankles together. He came perilously close to her breasts (though technically, he'd been there before) and Penny whimpered into her arm.

It was much more of a turn-on than she had predicted. This was dangerous territory.

He covered the sides of her back, his fingers curling into her stomach.

She gasped.

He worked his way back down to her lower back.

The was when Penny made a startling discovery.

Every guy she'd ever slept with (including and especially Leonard) had always gone straight for the boobs or the butt. Nobody had ever thought to pay any attention to the small of her back. But now as Sheldon's nimble fingers took what some might call an unnecessary amount of time rubbing lotion into the area just above the line of her bikini bottom, she discovered to her astonishment and pleasure that it was a total erogenous zone.

_ "I don't know about the small of your back. I don't think about the small of your back."_

Penny tried to be as subtle as possible about crossing one leg over the other, her ankles writhing. But the problem was that Sheldon was on the verge of giving her a very happy ending to the proceedings which she had in no way expected from a simple sunscreen session.

_That'll teach you!_

And then he was finished. He stopped suddenly and it would've been fine if Sheldon hadn't said in the huskiest drawl she'd ever heard out of his mouth, "I trust that's satisfactory."

And then he exhaled, his breath ghosting over her lower back such that Penny clenched the cushion of her chair and had to bite her wrist to keep from shrieking his name right in the middle of the Bellagio pool area in front of God and everybody.

He leaned over and refastened the top of her swimsuit.

Penny lay spent like a big post-coital clump of stardust.

A minute passed.

"Penny? Are you...well?"

"Mmmhmm," she muffled. She took a moment and sat up, adjusting her top and blinking rapidly. "Uh huh, yup."

She licked her lips, avoiding his eyes. But when they finally looked at each other she saw a subtle flicker of astonishment on his face and he stood up quickly, grabbing his bags.

"As the body is seventy-five percent water, I'm almost positive I just felt it drop to seventy-four point five. I'm believe I'm suffering from dehydration caused by a loss of fluid in my intracellular space and a lack of electrolytes. If you should go swimming, please take care to ask the staff if the chlorine levels are under three parts per million. Over chlorinated water is terrible for the membrane tissues. Also dental enamel."

He traipsed off, dragging his giant duffel and Penny gazed after him.

"Holy geez," she whispered. "Sheldon Cooper is a sex God."

* * *

Sheldon went inside and brought himself a cold Gatorade, trying not to think about Penny's pink cheeks and swollen red lips and dilated eyes and dear _Lord_…

He made a stop at the concierge on his way out of The Bellagio and requested use of the hotel safe for the contents of his duffel bag. He asked the concierge a series of interrogatory questions about the security of the casino (most of which related to "Oceans Eleven") and signed a bunch of paperwork. Finally, the concierge unzipped the duffel and his eyes got big.

"Sir?" The concierge gawked at Sheldon.

"It is money," Sheldon said flatly. "This is a casino. I assume you've seen large quantities of American currency before?"

The concierge looked the tall young guy in the Flash t-shirt up and down.

"Yes, but sir you used a Superman fan club card as I.D., I'm just a bit-"

"Justice League of America card," Sheldon corrected. "That was a fifth form of identification. Is there a problem?"

"I only needed two I.D.s but… No no, no problem at all!" The concierge swallowed. "I just didn't expect… Are you having a pleasant stay, sir? Anything at all that you require?"

"A cab to The Wynn. The car in which I'm least likely to contract the Human Pappiloma virus."

Sheldon consulted his itinerary while the concierge called for the cab. If he worked quickly he might meet his goal before two. Unless The Wynn caught on and asked him to leave first.

That kept happening.

The concierge's mustache was twitching when he spoke to Sheldon again. ", I would not be doing my job if I failed to recommend that you enjoy the pleasures of _our_ casino-"

"My friend Penny and I have had a pleasant enough stay so far," Sheldon said. "As such, I've done you the courtesy of avoiding your Black Jack tables."

The concierge just said, "Eh…"

"I don't lose," Sheldon said flatly. "Unless I intend to. Ask Wil Wheaton."

The concierge looked at him with pity and escorted him through the lobby and outside to await his cab. "Many men have said they do not lose, sir," the concierge said. "And I've seen them leave this hotel with empty pockets. Good luck anyhow."

"I don't believe in luck," Sheldon grumbled, slipping on his shades. "The possibility of gravity within black holes, yes. Luck is similar to a Jedi mind trick." The concierge frowned at him in confusion and Sheldon rolled his eyes. "For the weak minded."

"Ah."

The cab pulled up and Sheldon slipped the concierge a twenty. "For your trouble. Good day."

He didn't hear the concierge whistle long and low when the cab drove off and whisper to himself, "That is one whimsical duck."


	6. Chapter 6

** The Bellagio Peregrination Chapter 6**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own this show. Chuck Lorre owns this show. Also, I have nothing against The Wynn. Just wanted to use a real hotel. Please don't sue me. Funny how I just got Wynn coupons in the mail after googling The Wynn/Bellagio a bunch of times.

**Note:** Hijinx ahoy! Silly sitcom reality applies. Oh yeah, also I realized halfway through writing this that it broke canon continuity for "The Vegas Renormalization" so I found a way around it that I think is very Sheldon-like. Hee hee.

**Chapter 6**

At The Wynn Sheldon took a stack of cash out of his messenger bag and brought chips. On his way to a high stakes Black Jack table, he could swear a few men in suits were looking at him suspiciously. Pointing even. But that wasn't entirely new.

Sheldon sat down, ordered a Mountain Dew from the cocktail waitress, and in the next hour won forty-five thousand dollars. He was so bored, he nearly fell sleep. At some of the other casinos, he had scheduled sizable "random" losses. Too long a winning streak tended to attract men in suits. But he was running out of time before he'd agreed to meet Penny, so he let himself keep winning.

Sheldon watched the cards. The counting was so absurdly simple, he was able to simultaneously theorize why the gamma ray detector data he was researching with Raj wasn't making any sense. He watched a lady in a cowboy hat next to him tap the green felt and he snorted in derision. There was no way she could win. Had she not been paying attention?

At the end of a game everyone but Sheldon groaned and a pile of blue chips was shoved in his direction. A crowd of people behind him cheered.

A high voice shouted, "Flash wins again! Woo!"

Three big men in suits appeared at his side.

_Oh dear._

Sheldon stacked the chips into a holder and nodded at the men in suits.

"Gentlemen," he said, his voice pitching up slightly and betraying his attempt to sound calm. "I'll just be on my way."

"Hold on there, Flash," a big burly man with a goatee said. "Time to have a talk."

"I'm doing nothing illegal," Sheldon said. "If this intimidation persists, I'll be forced to retain a lawyer."

The skinny blonde weasel-faced one put up his hands as if to ward Sheldon off. "Whoa whoa whoa! Who's intimidating?"

"Just a friendly conversation," she short one said. "With a patron who clearly knows his way around a Blackjack table."

The big one took his chips. "I'll hang on to these for ya. Don't worry, you'll get them back." He put his arm around Sheldon's shoulders and they led him through the crowd, who had started booing.

"Hang tough, Flash!" Someone hooted.

Sheldon grimaced. He had a strong urge to throw the man's arm off. But that would probably be unwise. He had considered that this might happen and the text was already written. He slipped his hand in his pocket, deftly unlocking his iPhone and pressing send without looking.

* * *

Leonard was back in Pasadena, in the JPL lab, synthesizing data and singing along to Katy Perry. He crunched some numbers, frowned, and crunched some more.

His phone buzzed just as he hit a high note on "Teenage Daydream". He read the text from Sheldon.

**CODE GAMBIT. WYNN. DON'T TELL PENNY.**

It took Leonard a second to understand it and then his mouth dropped open.

"Oh _frak_!"

He grabbed his laptop and his bag and dashed out the door.

* * *

They sat him down in a hard chair at a table in a wood paneled room. The three men stood over him. Sheldon swallowed.

Sheldon started to speak shrilly. "Harassment by gambling establishments has been challenged in court on multiple-"

"Can it," the blonde snapped.

There was a knock on the door and a women handed a folder to the short guy. The short guy closed the door and smirked at the others. He spread several paper printouts of color photos on the table. They were all of Sheldon playing Blackjack earlier in the day at other casinos. This did not surprise him. Although it was no less disturbing.

"Harrah's," The blonde man said. "Tropicana. Ceaser's. Venetian..."

"Word travels fast on the strip," the big one said. "Everybody's talking about The Flash beating every house today."

"You know, I am not _actually_ The Flash." Sheldon said, honestly curious. "It's just a t-shirt. Also, may I leave now?"

"Kid, we're friends!" The big one said. He clapped Sheldon on the shoulder. It hurt.

"I'm going to presume that the tone of your voice and your actual words are intended to directly contradict each other. Particularly since, if we're friends, why have I not been offered a beverage?"

"Sure, slim!" The blonde guy said. "What would you like?"

"Yoohoo. No ice."

* * *

Howard was practicing magic tricks in his room for his mother's annual post-birthday Night of Illusions with her little boy. Bernadette was holding three rings in a carefully choreographed formation when Howard's phone buzzed.

It was a text from Leonard.

**CODE GAMBIT!**

"Oh _crap_!"

"Howie, what is it?" Bernadette said, touching his arm.

"I gotta go!" He threw his trick scarf on the bed and stumbled around for his jacket, wallet, and keys. "Crap crap crap!"

"Howie, _what_?"

"I gotta call Leonard!"

"What's going on?"

He tripped on his way to the door and flailed his way into his jacket. "Sheldon's in trouble!"

"In trouble how?"

He kissed her and shrugged. "I don't know yet, but if I don't come back, tell my mother I died heroically."

He took off, leaving the identical hollers of his wife and mother in his wake.

* * *

"Obviously, we're going to have to ask you politely to enjoy your gaming elsewhere. Preferably far away. I hear Pechanga is nice." The blonde guy was leaning on the table, tapping his fingers.

"Agreed," Sheldon said. "If that concludes our business then-"

"It doesn't," the big one said, glaring. "I think you already know what we want to hear."

"If the inference relies on interpreting facial expressions, I'm afraid I'm at a loss."

"Who's on your team? You're a card counter, you must have a team!" The short one exploded. "Who are you counting with?"

"I do not have a _team_," Sheldon sneered. "I do not require a team. I have two doctorates. I've solved space time geometry for higher spin gravity. I'm on the verge of isolating the Higgs Boson particle in the Large Hadron Collider from ten thousand miles away. I do not require a _team_ to win at a game so absurdly simple it requires the boorish tactics of thugs to gain an advantage for the opposing side." The big one actually growled and Sheldon cringed. "Not that I'm criticizing. Though I have yet to see a Yoohoo."

The short guy opened his folder again. He spread more pictures on the table in front of Sheldon. The pictures were of Penny, in her bikini by the pool. Sheldon sat up with a start.

"Who's the blonde?" The short guy said.

In one of the pictures, Penny was talking to the idiot from G4. In another his hand was on her thigh. Sheldon twitched. In another it appeared Penny was bending back his fingers. He couldn't help but laugh with a little gasp. In the other pictures it was Sheldon rubbing sunscreen into her back.

"I'm sure I don't know," Sheldon said, twitching like a nervous cricket. "I've never seen her before. Perhaps that was Photoshopped."

"Judging by what was observed," the blonde man said, "we suspect she's the muscle."

"Well, _I'm_ clearly not the muscle. Not that I'm implying she's the muscle. Although in a hypothetical situation involving a battle for survival against zombie hoards-"

"Do you _ever_ shut up?" The short one said. "Who's the girl? Who's on the rest of your team?"

"There _is _no team-"

He was interrupted by another knock at the door. The dark haired woman was back. She handed the short guy another folder and they spoke briefly. The short guy swaggered over, reading something.

"He's lying," the short guy said breezily. "Found some very interesting information in the counter's database. Looks like The Flash and his pals have played the strip before. But back then they called themselves...X-men."

Sheldon muttered, "If I faint, it's only because I'm quite terrified."

"February two thousand seven." Short Guy cleared the pictures on the table away and set down a big glossy photo of Leonard holding a beer and standing in the middle of a casino floor. "This is...Cyclops."

Next to it he put a picture of Raj grinning and pumping his fist in triumph.

"Nightcrawler."

Next, a photo of Howard hunched over a Blackjack table.

"Ice Man. And the king of them all, the man with the golden count..." He put down a picture of Sheldon at a card table sipping punch through a Red Vine.

"Gambit."

* * *

Raj was on a plane, almost sorry that his long flight back from India was over, as he was only halfway though _The Devil Wears Prada_ on his laptop.

"Oh, Meryl Streep," he cooed. "You're love for fashion and diva-like bitchiness is still endearing."

The plane landed at LAX and he grabbed his backpack from the overhead compartment. He ignored his phone. Everyone knew he'd been flying and he was expecting to take a cab home since all his friends were busy that day.

When he hopped on the escalator down to baggage claim, he was pleasantly surprised to see Howard and Leonard waving emphatically at him from the bottom. He waved back cheerfully but as he descended towards them he saw their panicked faces and he dropped his arm.

"Oh nooo," he groaned. "Sheldon's blown up Vegas."

"Hey, dudes!" Raj grinned, hoping he was wrong and stepping off the escalator. "What's up? I didn't expect to-"

"We've got a code _Gambit_," Leonard hissed.

Raj's face fell. "What? I-I-I don't know what that is! What're you talking about? We-we-we went to San Diego! I saw the rainforest exhibit at the zoo! It was magical!"

"It's not a Sheldon test," Howard growled. "He texted Leonard. And he's in Vegas..."

"But...no. He wouldn't!" Raj insisted. "Not after all that!"

"Look, I don't know what's going on," Leonard said. "But we gotta go to Vegas. He might really be in trouble. We're catching a flight right now."

"But I just got home!" Raj whined. "I haven't even picked up my bags yet!"

They prodded him outside in the direction of the domestic terminal.

"Just claim them later!" Howard said. "They'll hold em' for you."

In line for tickets, Leonard shook his head, obsessively checking his phone for texts. "It doesn't make any sense," he said. "Sheldon's the one who made us come up with alternate histories for that entire week like it had never happened."

"Yeah, no kidding!" Howard said. "That story was so detailed I started to think it was all true."

"Me too," Raj said mournfully. "I wish it had been. I love Sea World."

"Wait, how do we know this _isn't _a test?" Leonard said. "Like when _he_ suggested we go after Leslie Winkle dumped you?" He nodded to Howard.

"It's not important who dumped who," Howard said scowling.

"That freaked me out too," Raj said. "It was diabolical. I guess we passed that test. We went but we pretended we'd never been there."

"And we didn't count," Leonard muttered. "Which I guess is the ultimate pass."

"Sheldon's the only one who can really count anyway," Howard muttered. "But he always _hated_ it."

They stepped forward in the line. Leonard crossed his arms. "Maybe it's a test now?"

"He wouldn't test us while he was _in_ Vegas," Howard said. "Besides, how is that even a test? It doesn't make sense. And do you really want to risk having to explain to Stephen Hawking that his new BFF, the The Future of String Theory's beautiful mind got crushed in a vice by Joe Pesci?"

Leonard went vaguely green. "Okay, okay, You have a point. But I get the window seat."

* * *

"So Gambit, huh?" The blonde man rose an eyebrow. "He some super genius like you?"

"No," Sheldon said simply. "Gambit possesses the mutant ability to manipulate kinetic energy. I'm more of a Professor X man. But the name seemed thematically logical."

Blonde guy just frowned at him.

"He throws playing cards," Sheldon said. It was after two o'clock now, he surmised. Penny would be waiting for him. He stared down at his hands. He'd been touching chips and green felt that had been touched by thousands of others, but he couldn't bear to use his Purell after rubbing lotion into her back. If he concentrated, he could still feel her skin.

"So...Gambit," the short guy said. "What are their real names? These X-men. Database only has the pictures."

They had Sheldon's name already. They had inspected his wallet. He had blindly activated a 'total shutdown' mode on his phone that Howard had invented a few months ago, and they couldn't turn it back on. It had frustrated the short one to no end, reminding Sheldon of Leonard to a disturbing degree.

Sheldon cleared his throat. If it wasn't exactly lying, it wouldn't be so difficult. "Cyclops is Scott Summers. Ice Man is Bobby Drake. Nightcrawler is Kurt Wagner."

The blonde guy blinked at the short guy. "Should I write this down?"

The big one rolled his eyes. "Those are the real X-men, you idiot. From the comic books?"

Sheldon hadn't expected that. His mouth twitched so much, it actually hurt. "I think you're mistaken."

The blonde one sat on the table and scratched his chin, eyeing Sheldon carefully. "So how much you guys rake in back in seven?"

"If you're referring to my past misadventures with card play," Sheldon said, "in February of two thousand and seven, we came away with two million nine hundred ninety-seven thousand five hundred and forty dollars, which we won in the course of two total days of actual play. Frankly, I had much more fun at the vintage arcade next to Luxor. They had Blaster Cockpits. It's very rare."

"Three _mil?_" The big one gaped at him. "In two days?"

"Yes, but ninety-nine point eight percent of it was absconded with by a Czechoslovakian gangster. Happily, what we had left paid for ComicCon that year."

The blonde one was fascinated. "Wait wait wait, lemme get this straight, doc. You guys took the strip for three mil and you lost it to some Czech hustler? How'd the hell that happen?"

Sheldon shrugged. "My friends thought she was pretty."

* * *

They were waiting to board the plane and Howard whipped the palm of his hand with his boarding pass.

"Baruska," he muttered.

"Howard!" Leonard yelped.

Raj said, "We said we'd never utter her name again!"

"Oh, what do you care?" Howard grumbled. "Everybody knows you're rich now. You didn't even need the money."

"That's not the point," he sulked. "I thought she liked me."

"Three million dollars." Howard rubbed his forehead. "Three million dollars split four ways... Seven hundred and fifty-thousand."

"We know, Howard," Leonard groaned.

"I could've brought my mom a nice house in San Marino," he continued, wearing a thousand yard stare. "Maybe some place with _two_ good bathrooms!"

"Yes, yes," Leonard sighed. "And Sheldon could've gotten a little Segue to motor around on and a cottage built to look like the Enterprise bridge but with padded walls. That money's gone. There's no point in obsessing over it."

"At least we had a nice time at ComicCon," Raj said, trying to be positive. "I got to buy Ian Somerhalder a beer." Howard just glared at him and Raj said by way of explanation, "His eyes are dreamy."

"So he didn't give you any details?" Howard prodded.

"No," Leonard said, shaking his head. "When we first established the code, it just meant one of us was in big trouble with casino staff. Which means he's being held at The Wynn. And he said not to tell Penny. I tried calling him, but he hasn't answered. Which…isn't good."

"But The Wynn's respectable right?" Raj said. "They wouldn't hurt him. Would they? When we got in trouble, it was with a much less reputable casino."

"I dunno," Howard mused. "Did you see that Kevin Spacey movie? Laurence Fishburne beat the crap out of that M.I.T. kid and that place seemed nice too. Why can't we tell Penny?"

"I don't know," Leonard said with a shrug. "Maybe he just thinks she'll be mad at him or something."

"Well, that's no good reason!" Howard fumed. "Call her! Maybe she can do something on her end!"

"Right, right," Leonard mumbled. "You're right." He glanced at the time and frowned. "Oh crap, we're boarding soon."

He called Penny and she picked up quickly. "Leonard, hey!"

"Penny! Sheldon's in trouble!" He barked. The flight was starting to board.

"What? What're you talking about? I just saw him a few hours ago-"

"Passengers with boarding passes numbering one through thirty are now boarding," the attendant's voice echoed.

There was no line. They would be walking straight onto the plane. He cursed himself for not calling sooner. He was losing reception.

"It's a long story, and he didn't want me to tell you but he's at the Wynn. He's being held there, we think-"

"Leonard-"

"He's been counting cards and he might be in real danger-"

"What! What do I do?"

"I don't know! What he really needs is a lawyer but-"

"Sir, you must hang up your phone."

"Frak. Penny, we're-"

"He's at The Wynn?"

"Yes, but-"

"Sir!"

"I gotta go! Be careful!"

Leonard hung up and stepped onto the plane. He'd just lost reception anyway. Great.


	7. Chapter 7

**The Bellagio Peregrination Chapter 7**

**Disclaimer**: I don't own this show. Chuck Lorre owns this show.

**Notes**: Totally finished writing this story! Safe to say my preferred Sheldon is the one who dives into ball pits and plays the bongos. Also realized this story is satiating my desire to see Parson and Cuoco in a 30's style screwball romcom. Oh that it were so. Something along the lines of "Bringing Up Baby."

**Chapter 7**

Sheldon was not answering his phone.

Penny stood, freshly showered and wearing her favorite jeans and red tank top. In the middle of the their suite she gripped her phone, gawking at it in disbelief. Sheldon was being held in the back of some casino. Sheldon was in danger. Sheldon had been counting _card_s?

"_Sheldon, don't ruin the game."_

"_How could he ruin the game?"_

"Oh crap on a cracker!" She grabbed her keys and wallet and took off

"Plan! Plan! I need a plan!" She muttered to herself, pulling out of the hotel parking garage with a jerk. "I'm not good with _plans_."

Sheldon was the genius. Sheldon was the one who came up with plans. Granted, they were ridiculous plans based in the reality of some alternate dimension, but they were still plans. Leonard had said what Sheldon needed was a lawyer. Penny didn't know any lawyers (except for Priya and she was in India and Penny didn't even have her number and that would be totally weird anyway) and had no money to retain the type of lawyer that would be so readily available as to show up at a moment's notice on the strip.

Call the cops, she thought. Based on what? A third hand phone call and no real information and it would take too long to convince them. Plus she had seen too many movies. This was _Vegas_.

Penny had a strong desire to just go kick someone's nads in, just like with that Zarnecki guy, and get her physicist back.

But that would probably be unwise.

She felt stupid and unexpectedly heard his voice in her head.

"_You're not stupid, Penny."_

Okay, okay. She'd heard about this sort of thing before; card counters getting stiff talking to's or just getting banished from casinos. So why didn't they just banish him? What were they holding him for? They wouldn't actually hurt him. Not a nice family type place like that. But what if…

"Well, this is a Mortal Conundrum," she muttered.

She imagined how the game would go between them.

"_I'm being held hostage by henchmen in the dark underbelly of The Wynn Hotel and Casino and you have to rescue me."_

"_What are my weapons?"_

She talked to herself, going back and forth, trying to think like Sheldon. Which wasn't exactly easy.

Then she started to get an idea. It was a spectacularly ridiculous idea. As it came together in her mind, she tried to call back Leonard and couldn't get through. Howard wasn't answering and Raj, as far as she knew, was in India.

At The Wynn, she parked as close as she could without using the garage. She took a moment in the driver's seat when she parked and licked her lips, slipping on her shades.

"Hold on, moonpie. I'm coming."

Penny hopped out of the car, whipped out her phone, and dialed Bernadette.

* * *

"Sheldon doesn't even care about money," Howard said. "Why would he be gambling at all?"

They had been asking themselves this question for fifteen minutes.

They were squished into coach.

"Yeah, I know," Leonard said, leaning on his hand. "It's _weird."_

Raj took a sip of his Bloody Mary, having decided he wanted to be able to speak to the cute flight attendant. "Maybe he finally decided to buy that life sized sculpture of Han Solo in carbonite."

"Naaah," Leonard mused. "He declared that inauthentic when he figured out it's not made of actual carbonite."

"There's no such thing as carbonite," Howard said.

"Oh, he's working on that too." Leonard shifted, uncomfortable in his seat. Mercifully, the flight from L.A. to Vegas was short. "That and unobtanium."

"When we figured out Baruska took our cash, he didn't even blink," Howard muttered.

"Yeah, it wasn't losing the money that upset him, it was the part where the Diamond Hand guys caught up with us and left us in the middle of the desert in our underwear."

"And took our shoes," Howard said darkly.

"I've never seen someone's nose _bleed_ that much," Raj said in wonderment. "I don't know how he didn't pass out."

"Rage is a real motivator."

Leonard stroked his chin. "Maybe it has something to do with Penny?"

"With Penny?" Howard shoved Raj's hand of the arm rest. "Why?"

"I don't know... She's been cagey lately. I think she's running out of money again. And Sheldon likes helping Penny."

"Sheldon doesn't like helping anybody."

"Mmm, yeah but it's different with her. They've always had sort of a...thing."

Raj and Howard's heads snapped to attention. "They have a _thing_," Howard said, incredulous. "What kind of a thing? Like a _thing_ thing?"

Raj gasped. "Did Penny steal his innocence? Sort of a _Summer of 42_ type deal?"

"No, noooo," Leonard groaned. "Nothing like that. And Sheldon's older than her, by the way."

"Physically, yes," Howard allowed. "Emotionally, she's a cougar."

Leonard said, "Look, all I know is... Eh, never mind."

Howard glowered at him. "Oh. My. God. You know something."

"Is there something to know?" Raj's eyes got big, he sucked down his tomato-flavored vodka.

"No, there's nothing!" Leonard insisted. "Penny would kill me!"

Howard grabbed his arm. "What do you know!"

Leonard's shoulders slumped and he sighed heavily. "Okay, look. After Penny and I broke up _again_ we had a really good conversation one night. We drank some tequila, we talked about why we're terrible together-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Howard snapped. "I bet it was a real rap session. What about Sheldon?"

"Here's the thing. She...kind of..._likes_ him. Like _like _likes him."

Raj and Howard stared at him blankly.

"I'm serious," Leonard clarified.

Howard shook his head. "Mm, what? I blacked out for a second."

"I know, I know," Leonard said. "It's insane. But it's so completely insane, it might actually come all the way around the other side to being...maybe a good idea?"

"Okay, wait," Howard said, smirking. "Let's just imagine for one mind blowing moment that this actually happened... You wouldn't have a problem with it?"

"Well, normally yeah. I mean if it were you or Raj-"

"It_ was_ me for one night that will live forever," Raj said, rhapsodic.

"Shut up, Koothrappali," Howard said. "Penny spilled about that little handy dandy months ago after too much two buck Chuck. Everybody knows."

"Dammit," he muttered.

"_Anyway_," Leonard continued, "if it were one of you guys or pretty much anyone else, than of course I'd have a problem with it. But this is Sheldon. He's out of his gourd. If there's actually someone in the world who can not only handle his craziness but love him anyway? Who am I to stand in his way? Even if it's my ex."

Raj was crying. "Oh my God, dude! That's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard!"

"Eh, besides which, if I'm still the one looking after Sheldon in twenty years, I'm going to have to kill myself. I'm thinking cyanide capsule hidden behind a tooth. So if Penny actually wants to, I say have at it."

"You sound so healthy." Howard rested his chin on his fist. "What have you been doing?"

"Deepak Chopra," Leonard said, tossing a peanut in his mouth.

* * *

Penny could swear she was being followed. She lost the guy in the suit by worming her way into a crowd of other girls her age and letting them herd her towards the back of the casino. Why she was being followed, she had no idea. But the man in grey Armani had looked at her very distinctly. Of course, it didn't help that she had a big suspicious plastic Wynn shopping bag strapped to her back. She ducked through an Employees Only door and into a dark hallway. She tried to look like she belonged there, walking with confidence, when she heard something through a door left ajar that made her freeze in her tracks.

"Fine then, I'm going to check up on The Flash situation one last time," a woman's voice said. "Apparently this guy's a real weirdo. Have they found the blonde yet?"

"Gannon just said he thought he spotted her on the floor, but he's not sure," a man said.

"So what are you waiting for? Check the cameras. I'll be back."

"The Flash..." Penny whispered.

She had the presence of mind to all but leap around the corner and hide, just as the woman strode into the hallway and stalked away, her heels clicking on the hard floor. Penny crept after her and peeked around a corner to see her knock softly at a door and talk to somebody. She looked irritated. The woman whipped around and Penny ducked back. She'd have to assume that Sheldon was in that room. It was all she had to go on.

"Hey! You can't be in here!"

Penny squeaked at a shout that echoed through the corridor, dashed down a hallway in the opposite direction of where Sheldon was possibly being held and around yet another corner. A door said Women's Locker Room and she ducked inside. A redheaded cocktail waitress was putting her hair up and she gaped at Penny, bewildered.

Penny ran up to her and whipped out her wallet.

"Hi," she said breathlessly. "This might sound weird... But I will give you a five hundred dollar Dior gift card if you take off all your clothes."

* * *

"Soooo allowing for the statistical probability of failure over success, if you scrambled the contents at irregular intervals preceding presentation, you'd have a _much _higher retention rate-"

The big guy slapped Sheldon in the back. Sheldon had been scribbling equations on a napkin and he dropped his pen.

"Doc," the big guy growled. "We didn't ask you to fix our card tables."

"Is _that _what you think I'm doing?" He crossed his arms. "Good Lord. I was trying to teach you people how to mix a decent Shirley Temple. You're driving your patrons away in veritable droves."

"We're getting nowhere," the blonde guy groaned.

"Look, doc," the short guy said, "we just want to know where the rest of your team is gaming so we can all have a little chat and make sure you boys know not to count here or at any of our affiliated establishments. Or things might start to get uncomfortable."

"They can't get much more uncomfortable than this chair," Sheldon said. "The lumbar support has no give at all for the natural curvature of my spine. The back rest is far too narrow. If you three are forced to sit in similar models, I would register a complaint with OSHA."

"WHERE ARE THE X-MEN!"

"They're not _here_," Sheldon insisted, flinching. He had no intention of telling the men that he had alerted his friends to his predicament, though he had little faith they'd be able to assist him if they tried. And they probably wouldn't. "Leona- I mean, _Cyclops_, is in Los Angeles. As is Ice Man. And Nightcrawler is in India kowtowing to his parent's culturally stereotypical wishes in exchange for ongoing trust fund payments."

"Fine," the short guy said. "Give us their names then."

Sheldon twitched. "Bobby Drake, Scott Summers-"

"That's it!" The short guy said. "I say we turn his face into hamburger."

"Oh, no no no," Sheldon said shakily. "You don't want to do that. For one thing it will ruin my taste for hamburgers. Might I suggest a good old fashioned pantsing? Or the ever classic swirly? Of the two, I'd prefer a pantsing. Much more sanitary!"

"I'll hold him," the short one said. He nodded at the big one. "You go to work. If you believe in God, doc, you might want to start praying."

"I believe Han shot first," Sheldon babbled. "Other then that I officially subscribe to no religious dogma."

"Do it."

"Before I meet my demise, could I possibly have my last words recorded for posterity? I haven't had the chance to have them laminated on a wallet sized card yet!"

"No!"

"Candy cigarette?"

"I'll kill him just to shut him up!" The short one growled. He came around Sheldon and yanked him back in his chair. The big one stomped over in his direction, glaring.

Sheldon shut his eyes. "Please try to avoid my frontal lobe! And my occipital lobe! If you could just avoid the brain altogether, I'd appreciate it!"

The big guy reared his massive fist back and then there was a knock at the door. Everybody groaned, except for Sheldon who peed just a tiny bit.

The blonde one sighed and answered the door, exchanged what sounded like heated words, and turned around, shrugging.

"Says there's a message from the floor..."

A woman walked in holding papers in front of her face. She shut the door and dropped the papers, letting them scatter.

"Yes, there is!" It was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But it wasn't. It was better, because it was Penny. Except she was dressed like a Wynn cocktail waitress in the uniform brown minidress. "Get your damn hands off my physicist!"

"Hey, it's her." The big one said simply.

Sheldon forgot his name rule and said, "_Penny_? What are you doing here?"

"Saving your ass, sweetie," Penny said. "Shut your trap."

"Unlikely," the big one said.

"Um, what are you gonna do about it, girly girl?" The short one said. "You think you can just waltz in here and take him?"

Sheldon said, "Penny, when did you become a cocktail waitress?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, honey."

"Baby doll," the blonde guy said, "this is _Vegas_. I don't think things work the way you think they work-"

"Oh, please." She crossed her arms and glared at the men like they were nothing more than troublesome customers at The Cheesecake Factory. "This is literally not my first rodeo. Can I ask what your plans are for my friend?"

"We just want the names of his compatriots. And their locations. Then he can go. Long as we never see him again."

"Compatriots?" Penny frowned.

The short guy held up a picture of Leonard.

"The X-men!" He said. "Who the hell is Cyclops?"

Penny valiantly stifled a laugh and then her expression shifted and she gave Sheldon a long look. Sheldon couldn't read it, but if he'd had a guess, it might've been admiration.

"And if he doesn't?" She said. "Will you continue to hold him against his will? Is he under threat of physical harm?"

"He's under threat of whatever we decide he's under threat of!"

"That's a terribly constructed sentence," Sheldon mumbled.

Penny pointed at him. "Zip it." She smiled slyly. "Look, fellas. I just want to know if it's Wynn Hotel policy to intimidate customers with threats of physical violence, particularly as card counting is not even illegal in the state of Nevada."

Sheldon started to smile.

"It is if we say so!" The short guy said.

"As employees of Wynn?"

"Why not?"

The big one threw his hands in the air and glared at the short one. "Hell is wrong with you? You know better!"

The short guy snarled. "Oh, what's _she _gonna do?"

"Oh, I'm _so _glad you said that." She whipped her iPhone out of the front of her cocktail waitress's bustier. "You get all that, Joan?"

A woman's voice chirped through the phone. "Got it, Penny!"

"See, I've got Joan Pryce Esquire of the firm of Higgs, Hawking, and Feynman of Beverly Hills on the phone and she's recording every single word. Her client is one Lee Cooper, B.S. M.S. M.A. Ph.D. Sc.D., noted theoretical physicist and...shortlisted for the Nobel Prize!"

Sheldon rose an eyebrow.

The voice on the phone said, "If you don't release my client immediately, I believe we have enough evidence to sue the pants off of of the Wynn Corporation. Legally speaking."

The three guys in suits all looked at each other, gobsmacked.

Penny cleared her throat. "Queen Penelope. For the win."

The short one said, "You know what? All you guys are punks. Fine. I'm out. I'm going back to Circus Circus."

The short guy left.

"I don't believe this." The blonde one said. "She's bluffing! She could have anybody on that phone. These guys are pros. He's no physi-whatever. He's a scam artist!" He nodded at the big one. "Grab her."

Sheldon shot out of his seat. "Don't hurt her!"

The big guy approached and Penny shrugged, tucking her phone back into her bra. "On to Plan B then."

Penny reached over her shoulder and pulled out the large object strapped to her back. She whipped off the plastic to reveal the paintball gun. She smirked at the men.

The blonde guy said, "Girly, that's a _paintball_ gun."

"Yeah, and that's a three thousand dollar suit, if I know my couture," Penny said, aiming the gun in her direction. "And I do."

The big guy took a couple steps in her direction. "That's not going to stop us, hon. Hate to tell ya."

"It'll leave some wicked welts," she cracked. "And if you take another step you're either gonna have to hit a girl or get hit by one. And I will _so_ kick your ass just like I kicked Skullsplitter's ass and those damn barbarian bastards! I don't care how many regens it takes!"

The big one stopped in his tracks and rose his eyebrows. "You play Age of Conan?"


	8. Chapter 8

**The Bellagio Peregrination Chapter 8**

**Disclaimer**: I don't own this show. Chuck Lorre owns this show. Again, no offense to The Wynn.

**Notes**:I've never played Age of Conan -I just tried to google stuff about it. Romance is coming soon, I promise. Hope y'all are enjoying this. It will be complete by Monday. Thanks for all the kind reviews!

**Chapter 8**

"I don't know what to tell you, Greg," Penny said around her straw. She checked her phone again, too distracted to remember if she'd ended the call with Bernadette. She had. "If you wanted more combat, why'd you become a shaman?"

Greg (the big guy) frowned at his avatar who was wandering aimlessly over a mossy hillside. "I was in the middle a of kind of a spiritual awakening at the time," he explained. "Hmph. Should've gone with assassin."

Sheldon was twisting back and forth in a more comfortable desk chair and sipping Yoohoo through a Red Vine, as they huddled in front of Greg's laptop. Penny suspected he'd had a lot of sugar over the course of the day.

Sheldon said, "I suppose Queen Penelope and I could assist you on a couple of quests if you make an appointment. Though I don't generally aide players below a level twenty-five…with one glaring exception."

Penny smiled at him prettily.

"Feel like such a noob," Greg grumbled. He loosened his tie.

Penny put on her 'badass' face again. "First we would like a signed document of some kind saying that, you know, you're not going to beat us up?"

Sheldon looked at her in surprise and she immediately knew he was shocked she'd thought of it before him. She cast him a good naturedly derisive look and for one dizzying moment, she was sure they'd briefly turned into each other.

"Oh, of course!" Greg said. The moment Penny had referred to Age of Conan, he'd become the picture of joviality and brought them his computer, leaving again to fetch them drinks, and begging them to help him with his gaming.

Sheldon edged him aside and took over control of the laptop, leading Gregorus on a little known path where gold was easy to find. "Whatever you need," Greg said. "And not in the way I meant before when I was implying a threat to your life."

The blonde guy had disappeared, mumbling to himself about nerds taking over the earth. Greg had grabbed him on his way and clutched his throat with one hand, assuring him that The Flash was off the hook now and if he told anyone otherwise, he'd be the one turned into hamburger.

Penny thought all this had resolved itself rather nicely. But she was careful to follow Sheldon's lead on not mentioning any other names.

Greg watched Sheldon play and said, "You really a physicist?"

Before Sheldon could even open his mouth to sing his own imperious praises Penny piped up. "Yeah he is. He's going to prove string theory."

Greg said, "What's string theory?"

When Sheldon met her eyes to exchange a knowing look as if they were in collusion against a lesser mortal, her mind was blown.

She shot him a mischievous grin and said with her best attempt at an impersonation, "It's a warm summer evening in Ancient Greece!"

She got him there. Sheldon actually coughed on his Yoohoo.

Greg look confused and Penny waved her hand. "Sorry. Inside joke. String theory says that everything is made of itsy bitsy strings."

Sheldon gawped at Penny. "_That's_ your explanation of-"

"Am I wrong?" Her lips twitched, delighted. "Seems pretty simple to me. I don't know why it's taking you so long to figure out how to prove this already."

His mouth twisted but it looked to her like was trying to cover amusement with aggravation. "You're mocking me, woman."

She leaned around Greg and tapped Sheldon delicately on the nose, like a kid pulling a lion's tail.

"You know you love it."

He blushed. It was easy to spot. He was so damn pale and he'd been slathering on the 50 SPF like the sun was about to supernova.

It occurred to her with a clarity that made her shiver, that he did love it when she teased. That he had from the beginning.

He fidgeted with his Red Vine. "Itsy _bitsy_?"

She stuck out her tongue. "In my universe, it's a valid unit of measurement," she said.

Sheldon made a noise of frustration and suddenly demanded a bathroom and Penny couldn't figure out why he was staring sulkily at his hands.

"He's kind of a big deal," Greg said when Sheldon was gone. "Isn't he?"

"Yeah, sort of. But he knows it, so don't remind him. He almost did prove it once," Penny muttered. She was thinking of the Arctic. Which no one ever talked about. "String theory, I mean. But his friends kind of screwed him over. Or…not kind of. They totally screwed him over."

She took over Greg's avatar and absentmindedly searched for the man's spirit animal in the forest. Greg was curious and chatty and Penny ended up explaining about the monopoles and the threats of throwing Sheldon's Kindle in the snow and the electric can opener. She was careful not to mention any names.

Greg shook his head. "The X-men did that?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "I mean it's water under the bridge now but… He almost quit physics forever because of that. They did go to Texas to get him back."

"You might find this hard to believe but I used to be involved with some pretty unsavory characters-"  
"You don't say?" Penny cracked.

"I'll tell ya, my buddies pull that crap with me on a job? Take more than a trip to Texas to make up for a thing like that." Penny swallowed, still a bit nervous around the suddenly friendly Greg, but she just shrugged and helped him with his shaman's healing.

"These guys don't really work like that," Penny explained, still thinking about the Arctic. "They have payback, but it usually amounts to underwear hanging from telephone wire or French maid costumes." She shuddered, glad she hadn't been there to see Sheldon in that ridiculous outfit.

The door opened and Penny's ears perked up when he entered. Sheldon squinted at them. "You were talking about me."

She batted her eyelashes. "Isn't everyone talking about you, sweetie?"

"Sarcasm?"

"You're five for five this month."

"You had a Trojan virus corrupting your system, by the way," Sheldon said to Greg, sitting next to them. "It was slowing your game play. That's why you had trouble with your refresh rate. I cleaned it out for you, but you should look into better virus protection."

"Doc, you're the best!" Greg grabbed him in a hug and Sheldon went stiff as a board, his eyes bugging out at Penny as he mouthed "help." Penny giggled.

"Anything you two need in Vegas from now on! " Greg went on. "It's Greg at the Wynn! You call me. And don't you two worry, your face is off the database. I'll put the word out. Now keep in mind, I'd lay low on the counting if I was you. But if you do get in another jam, you give me call. I know everybody."

He gave them his card. Again. He'd given them three already.

"I presume I still can't play cards here?" Sheldon said wryly.

"Doc, you'd wipe us out in a week," Greg said. He looked serious.

"Quite alright," he said with a shrug. "I've met my goal anyhow."

Greg had cashed in Sheldon's chips for him. Penny had asked him how much he'd won, and he'd gotten all twitchy and mysterious.

"Dear Lord!" Sheldon was glaring at his watch. "It's four o'clock, Penny! I told Siebert I would meet with at least one science program producer at the conference. And we haven't eaten yet! I have dinner on our itinerary for five o'clock but we'll need to change unless you plan on wearing that ridiculous thing for the remainder of the evening?" He nodded at her cocktail waitress uniform which she had forgotten she was wearing. It was more comfortable than she would've imagined and not so terribly skimpy.

She got up and spun around. "What? You don't like it?"

He made a face. "It's brown."

"I don't look good in brown?" She started to pout and realized that would be Soft Kitty Face and she should conserve it's power.

Sheldon looked genuinely irritated. "_Penny_, if you are fishing for compliments, metaphorically speaking, I don't believe you need to be told that you look equally attractive in any color. But you don't wear brown. You wear rainbow colors. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and combinations thereof. Also pink. Maybe black on formal occasions or for pants. Never _brown_. Brown is not a Penny color. If one were to attempt Penny cosplay, one would certainly not wear brown. It's off putting. I dislike it."

About halfway through his little speech, Penny had rested her chin in her hands and grinned at him happily. Now she said, "If you're gonna keep saying adorable things like that, I might need more sunscreen on my back."

Sheldon's ears turned fuchsia and he suddenly found his Red Vine wildly fascinating.

"Having said that," she continued, "you know I'll wear whatever color I damn well please, right?"

"Obviously," he said with a shrug.

* * *

They left Greg and agreed on several future appointments with his shaman avatar, Gregorus.

In the car on the way back to The Bellagio, Penny noticed that Sheldon was eyeing her with suspicion.

"Hey there, Shelly," she said. "What's up?"

"The firm of Higgs, Hawking, and Feynman?"

"Ya know, what's bonkers?" She said with smirk. "It was the first thing I thought of."

"Who was on the phone?"

"Bernadette. Lowering her voice. Who also said Howard ran off very mysteriously and because you were trouble. But she didn't know anything else." Penny smiled to herself. Okay, they'd lucked out with Greg being a gamer and all. But it was still a pretty badass plan. "Joan Pryce is just a made up name. Inspired by _Mad Men_. I've been watching _Mad Men_. And the Nobel Prize thing I just threw in there because they probably wouldn't have heard of those other awards." Sheldon was still giving her a funny little smile and she rose her eyebrows. "Something on your mind?"

"Do you have a secret identity?" He said.

Of all the questions she might have expected, that had not been one of them.

"Eh, there's a creepy guy at the grocery store who wanted me to give him a private viewing of my feet. I told him my name is Janice and that I'm really a dude. Other then that, no."

"Your dramatic entrance and quippy one-liners _and_ the visual juxtaposition of a cocktail waitress uniform with a large albeit nonlethal weapon lead me to suspect that you are, in fact, a spy for the government. Or from Russia. Or you're a shape-shifting extraterrestrial."

"I hate to burst your bubble, sweetie pie, but how on earth would I go on secret missions or whatever else you're imagining while waitressing and hanging out at your apartment all the time?"

Sheldon snorted as if it were obvious. "There _would_ have to be two Pennys. A clone. Or...an as yet undiscovered identical twin sister."

"You have to stop watching _Ringer_."

"I do _not_ watch _Ringer_."

"Good. It sucks."

"But on the subject of whatever her name is-"

"Sarah Michelle Geller." The valet at the hotel wanted to park for them. They hopped out of the car and Sheldon followed her, lugging his heavy messenger bag. She was carrying the paintball gun in a new Wynn shopping tote.

"Yes, her. Now I'm think you should be Buffy Summers for ComicCon," he said. "The only problem there is that she had no particularly iconic costume. You'd have to walk around carrying a stake."

They traipsed into the lobby. Penny suddenly felt embarrassed to be disingenuously dressed like a cocktail waitress in public. Although she supposed it could be mistaken for a real dress.

"What happened to Starbuck?" She said. Sheldon was deep in thought.

"It's a tough call..."

"Then there's Leia..." She hinted.

He slapped his forehead. "Leia!"

"I'll only do Star Wars, if you do too," she said, with a particular agenda in mind. "So the question is, Han and Leia, or Luke and Leia?"

"Han, of course," he said.

She grinned. "Yeah?"

"Of the two, I look more like Han."

"Oh." She narrowed her eyes. "Yeah. Oh never mind, just be C3PO." She pretended to be offended, tossing her nose in the air and striding through the lobby. Sheldon had paused and now he skipped after her.

"Well, wait!" He said. "I'd _rather_ be Han!"

In the elevator she kept her eyes on the rising numbers and said, "So first Leia, then Starbuck, maybe Buffy if I can think of a costume..."

He turned to face her, surprised. "All three?"

"I might to go to ComicCon several times. Right? It's not as if I'm moving..." She turned to face him. He was chewing on his lip, his eyes bright. "I _pinky_ swore, Sheldon. I'll just have to...figure something out." He nodded, wearing his mysterious face again, and she said, "I have to say, I thought you'd be way more freaked out about what just happened. I mean you were like taken hostage just now! By like...thugs! And you didn't even give up your friends! That was really badass."

Sheldon frowned and nodded again, blinking at her.

"Apparently, they were about to turn my face into hamburger," he said. "Thank you for rescuing me, Penny."

She didn't get a "you're welcome" out before he fainted dead away on the floor of the elevator.

"Awww. I'm just surprised that took so long."

* * *

"Okay," Leonard said. "So now what do we do?"

They were standing in front of the entrance to the Wynn casino.

Howard hedged. "Eh, maybe I could hack into the main frame?"

Raj curled his lip. "And do what?"

"I-I don't know!" He stuttered. "Crash their slot machines?"

Leonard snorted at him. "How 'bout before we shut down Vegas, we just go in there and see if we can find him?"

"Maybe we should dress like security guards," Raj suggested. "Like in New Hope?"

"That never actually works," Leonard snarked. "We haven't heard anything from Sheldon or Penny? My phone's dead."

Raj shrugged. "I haven't had reception since we landed. And no messages."

Howard patted his pockets and groaned. "I dropped my phone in the taxi!"

"Good job," Leonard said.

"I didn't do it on purpose," Howard shouted. "Bernie's gonna kill me!"

"Well, come on." Leonard grumbled and strode into the casino. "Let's go save Sheldon."

They headed to the cash-in desk, but kept on eye out on the floor. At the cash window they questioned the cashier.

"Brown hair? Blue eyes? Tall obnoxious guy?" Howard said to the woman at the counter. "Comic book shirt? Probably smells like baby powder and Purell?"

"Oh!" Her face lit up. "You mean The Flash? That was so exciting!"

Leonard and Raj huddled around Howard. "Is here? Is he okay?" Leonard said.

She shrugged. "The fellas took him in the back. That happens when you win too much sometimes. 'Specially at Black Jack."

"Yeah, we know," Howard said darkly.

Raj and Leonard both jerked as they each felt a large meaty hand clap them on the shoulder.

"Well, well," a rumbling voice said. "If it ain't the X-men."

"Uh oh," Raj whimpered.

Leonard's stomach dropped.

"Your friend's in the back," the man said as they slowly turned around to see a Kurt-sized individual glowering down at them. "Why don't you three come with me? He's fine."

They all glanced at each other and shrugged. It occurred to Leonard that maybe they should've come up with a plan.

The big guy introduced himself as Greg and herded them through a labyrinthine series of corridors.

"You didn't hurt him, did you?" Leonard said.

"Hurt him?" Howard scoffed. "All the Nazis would've had to do is make Sheldon drink pulpy orange juice and he would've given up the French resistance."

"Oh, really?" Greg said, scowling at them. "Is that what you think?"

Greg stopped in the middle of the corridor and crossed his arms. Raj looked around and realized they were cornered in a dark hallway with no doors behind them.

"I've got a bad feeling about this..." Raj said.

"It's a trap!" Howard said.

They both glared at Leonard who put his hands up in defense. "It's not my _fault_!"


	9. Chapter 9

**The Bellagio Peregrination Chapter 9**

**Disclaimer**: I don't own this show. Chuck Lorre owns this show.

**Notes**: Romance!

**Chapter 9**

After Sheldon had revived, they ate too fast for his liking and dressed casually for the conference. Sheldon wanted to know how she had discovered he was in danger, and when she told him Leonard called her, he was annoyed. Penny attempted to get a hold of Leonard to let him know that Sheldon was okay, but he didn't answer and she left a voicemail.

They had a fine time at the second night of the conference. Sheldon managed to appease Siebert, and proceed to both aggravate and impress his powerful friends. Fortunately, Siebert knew enough not to attempt to patch things up between Sheldon and the man from Belnam Books. Sheldon spoke to Nate and agreed to a live streaming interview online on the next night. Penny told him she was going to listen to Neil DeGrasse Tyson talk about the history of the universe and he balked and put up an enormous fuss. There was nothing that Tyson knew that he couldn't tell her himself. But she only twisted her hair around her finger and declared the presentation too romantic to ignore.

This baffled him.

He even considered ditching some magazine people to go along just to heckle Tyson on his lesser knowledge and then Penny pecked him on the cheek and scampered off and he stood staring, half expecting somebody in a black suit to bump him with a room service cart again.

And when had sweetie become sweetie pie? He'd never heard Penny call anyone else sweetie pie. An amalgamation of sweetie and moon pie, he surmised. Did that term imply a more advanced degree of affection?

He talked to _Wired_ and _Scientific American_ and a couple from from "Nova." They asked him about the rumor that he was self-publishing and he shrugged and pulled on the hem of his melting Rubix Cube shirt and offhandedly mentioned the collapse of traditionally distributed content. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Penny reappear. She was wearing a bright yellow t-shirt and a multicolored print skirt and she was wearing an orange Penny Blossom in her hair. Penny colors.

When the night finally died down, they took their leave. Back in the living room of their suite, Sheldon had barely put his bag down when Penny stepped in front of him, bouncing on her toes.

"I have something to give you!" She said.

Sheldon crossed his arms. "Does this gift require reciprocation?"

"No!" She said firmly. "It's a thank you gift for taking me along."

"Very well," he said. Though he had already explained that taking her along had cost him nothing, he wasn't one to turn down a gift from Penny. Not anymore. Mainly because her gifts to him tended to be the best he'd ever received.

She dashed into her room and came back with a large silver gift bag with black tissue paper peaking out of it. She held it out and he started to reach for it when she yanked it back suddenly.

"Okay, hold on," she said. He rose an eyebrow. "Before you open this, I think I should point out something about...social protocol. This is not Leonard Nimoy's DNA or a mint in box transporter or anything like that."

"You've already give me Leonard Nimoy's DNA. I don't think I'll require a second sample. Although a replacement vintage transporter would be-"

"Okay, well it's not that," she said. "What I mean is, it's not like a big deal. It's just a little gift to say thanks."

"I wouldn't imagine it would be of great value," he pointed out. "As we've established your lack of funds."

"Yes." She frowned. "I'm broke, we know. Anyway, I'm just saying your expectations should be low and also...try to be polite even if you don't care about it."

"Seems like an odd preface to a gift, but alright." She handed him the bag and he unpacked the tissue paper and pulled out his gift. It took a second to recognize its function. "Oh! It's a laptop cover." It was red, made of the same leathery vinyl fabric as Penny's clutch purse. And when he turned it over... "It's a _Flash_ laptop cover!" The Flash's logo was appliqued on the top and his name was embroidered underneath it in yellow. "I've never seen a Flash laptop cover before. I've looked."

"I made it," she said with a little shrug. "It's a Penny Blossom creation. And don't worry about proper protection for your laptop or whatever. Howard helped me out a little finding a good kind of foam to sew into the lining. I even tested it on my own laptop, threw it around the room a little-"

"It's great!" He yelped, tugging at it and testing the zipper like he had with the purse. It did seem very well constructed.

She fluttered and grinned and sort of danced around him. "At first I wanted to make all kinds of stuff with superhero logos to sell, but apparently that's copyright infringement or whatever."

"Oh yes," he muttered, digging his laptop out of his messenger bag to slip it into the cover. "You have to be licensed-"

"Right. But I'm only giving this to you, so it's fine."

He lit up. "So there's only one?"

"It does have your name on it. Why would I made another one?"

Sheldon zipped and unzipped his laptop cover. "That could be a customization option for a hypothetical extra charge."

"Oh yeah. That's a good idea actually... For non-superhero themed laptop covers. Anyway, yes. That's the only one."

"So it's a limited edition!"

She laughed. "Extremely limited."

"Thank you, Penny."

Penny was wringing her hands, Sheldon noticed. Which was often an expression of anxiety. Which further confused Sheldon.

"So...you really like it?" She said.

"I thought my effusive expression of gratitude strongly implied that."

"Yes." She grinned and bounced on her toes again. "It did."

"Then why did you ask me?"

"I dunno. I'm gonna put on my pajamas." With that she bounced into her room.

Sheldon watched her go and shook his head. "She is so strange."

* * *

Greg had locked them in a windowless room for a while because "he had to take care of some business." Finally, after a couple of hours Leonard, Howard, and Raj found themselves squeezed into the back of a limousine with Greg who had not yet turned off his angry glare.

"So..." Greg said, as the limo drove them who knew where. "The X-men."

Leonard prayed inwardly to a God he'd never considered much before. "I-I-I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Oh, really? _Cyclops_?"

"Okay, okay, okay!" Howard said, laughing nervously. "Obviously, you've heard of us. We have a tiny bit of history in Vegas. But we haven't been back since! Did Sheldon tell you about us?"

Greg all but roared, "Did Sheldon tell me about- You three are morons!"

They looked at each other in confusion. Leonard said, "Look, just tell us what happened? Please? Did you... Did you kill Sheldon?"

"I don't _kill_ people! What do I look like?" Greg said, offended. "Unless it's for experience points!"

"So what'd you do to him?" Raj whimpered. "Does he still have all his fingers? He has such nice fingers."

Howard and Leonard gaped at him.

"What?" Raj said. "He does. I've seen him play piano."

" Cooper happens to be a friend of mine," Greg said proudly.

"He is?" Leonard said. "Well, good! Great! He's our friend too and-"

"Oh, is he?" Greg said. "You three make it a habit of betraying your friends?"

"B-b-betraying?" Howard sputtered. "What're you talking about? What'd he tell you?"

"He didn't tell me anything about you!" Greg said. "In fact, my associates and I were about to make things very uncomfortable for him and he _still_ wouldn't give us your names!"

"Uncomfortable like...you were going to take his hand sanitizer?" Raj said quietly.

"Hardly."

Leonard rose his eyebrows. "Really? Well, what betrayal are you talking about? We haven't done anything."

"You haven't? I'm talking about the Arctic. Three years ago." Greg crossed his arms and scowled. "A little prank you three pulled with an electric can opener?"

"He told you about _that_?" Howard said.

"No, his girlfriend did," Greg said. "While we were playing Age of Conan."

"Age of _Conan_?" Howard shook his head, utterly flummoxed.

"Amy's in Vegas?" Leonard said.

"I'm talkin' about Penny," Greg said. "Blonde spitfire. Handy with a paintball gun."

"She's not his... Wait, why would Penny tell you that?"

"We got to talkin'. Penny and jumped me five levels on Conan. And debugged my Dell. I happen to take quality I.T. service very seriously and I'm _loyal_. Unlike you stooges!"

"Okay, so yes," Leonard said, suddenly feeling very small. "That happened. The Arctic. But it was three years ago, alright? And he forgave us!"

"Of course, he did," Greg sneered. "Nobody wants to live in Texas. Except for Austin. I'll give you Austin. But that's not the point. I think it's time you idiots learned a lesson about friendship."

The limo stopped as if on cue. They'd been driving for a while and they were no longer in Vegas.

"But you said you don't kill people, right?" Howard said.

Leonard reached for his inhaler and took a deep drag.

"Outta the car, boys," Greg said.

They were in the middle of nowhere and it was starting to get dark. Greg had a garbage bag and he opened it and looked at them expectantly.

"Everything but the underpants and the shoes goes in this bag."

"Oh my God," Raj said. "It's happening _again_!"

"Count yourself lucky he's letting us keep our shoes," Howard mumbled.

"Changed my mind," Greg said. "Shoes go in the bag."

"Dammit, Howard!" Leonard snapped.

"Strip!"

Minutes later Greg tossed a bag full of their clothes, shoes, and remaining phones into the limo. The three men stood on a stretch of gravely desert sand in their boxers. There was nothing for miles.

"You boys wanna get back to Vegas, you better start walking," Greg said, getting back in the limo. "Consider yourselves powned."

* * *

They'd been walking for a mile before Leonard said what he hoped his friends were thinking.

"You know...he was right."

"About what?" Howard grumbled, rubbing his arms for warmth. It was starting to get a little chilly into the evening. "Good tech service is hard to find?"

"No," Leonard said. "We do deserve this. Do you ever think about the Arctic?"

"No," Howard mumbled, staring at the ground as he walked.

"Yeah, me either," Leonard said. "'Cause it's the worst thing I've ever done."

"Fine," Howard said with a sigh. "Me too. But-"

"Me too," Raj agreed.

"And it's not like we didn't know what we were getting into when we agreed to go," Leonard said, wincing as he stepped on a rock. "We knew he'd be a nightmare. It didn't justify it. And, you know what? He never mentioned it again! I mean he's amended the Roommate Agreement for way less than that!"

"Didn't even give us a strike," Howard mumbled.

"It was too big for a strike," Raj said with a frown. "_And_ he didn't sell us out today."

"Fine!" Howard said. "Fair enough. I just wish payback came with sneakers."

"So," Raj said, brightening a little. "You think he'll end up with Penny?"

Leonard was wistful. "Eh, if he doesn't, he's no genius."

* * *

It wasn't too late, so once Penny had changed into her Hello Kitty shorts and socks and Sheldon into his plaid flannel, they sat on the couch and found that _E.T._ was on TV.

As Elliott dropped Reece's Pieces in the forest, Penny propped her socked feet up on the coffee table and said, "Yo, Sheldon."

"Penny?"

"What's the difference between logic and practicality?"

"_Broadly_ speaking, nothing. They're synonymous." He was trying to focus on the movie. Even though he'd seen the movie numerous times, if he concentrated, he might forget that Penny's thigh was touching his knee.

"Really. So what was with the big speech against being practical last night? With the Copenhagen Interpretation and the multicellular organisms and all that? That was totally unSheldon-like."

"Excuse me, the context of that soliloquy-"

"A soliloquy is when you're talking to yourself."

Sheldon did a little triple take.

She smirked at him. "I know what a soliloquy is, Sheldon. It's a theater term. I took acting lessons."

He squirmed and tried to ignore the tiny part of his brain that was fascinated when Penny knew something he didn't.

"Logic is a formal discipline and a system of reason. While practicality is just a figurative crutch for the average to maintain the _status quo_, as it were, and ignores anything but the most banal of concerns. By means of logic, we discover that we are stardust. By means of practicality, we would never look at the stars at all."

Penny had shifted in her seat and was now sitting cross legged, facing him and ignoring the movie. She was all but giggling.

Sheldon said, "Have I said something amusing?"

"No, I was just thinking that if you said inspiring stuff like that instead of talking about your own genius all the time, people would like you more."

"Seeing as how I dislike most people, I have no interest in demanding their admiration. And if they like me for anything, it _should_ be for my genius."

"Right, you don't like people. Sheldon mantra. That's why you spend all your time with the same three guys?"

"And you," he said, looking needlessly at his hands. "Also, I said most."

"So you like _me_ then?"

He glanced quickly at her. Penny's eyes were twinkling. Sheldon stood up, suddenly deciding he needed a soda from the mini-bar.

"Why must I always be hounded to explain my feelings?" He grumbled, ambling across the room. "Next you'll ask me to participate in a drum circle to bring about the catharsis of the inner child or some such nonsense."

"Sweetie, you have no inner child. He's pretty much right out there," Penny said dryly. "And people like to be told how their friends feel about them. So I'm just wondering... How do you feel about me?"

He grabbed a can of Diet Coke from the fridge and shrugged. "It's such an odd question!" His voice pitched up.

Sheldon held a Diet Coke out to Penny and she took it, her face all twisted in the expression Sheldon knew usually meant "what the frak are you talking about".

"How is 'how do you feel about me' an odd question?" She said.

"Because my attitude towards you is constantly shifting depending on the situation or your attitude towards me or countless other reasons to a degree that defies quantification. The result of which is usually abject frustration as most of these emotional responses cannot even be adequately described in mere _words_."

"Interesting," Penny whispered. She was playing with the tab on her Coke can. "Okay... How do you feel about Leonard?"

"Ah, my attitude towards Leonard fluctuates between contentment when I'm enjoying his company, bland indifference, and aggravation at his lack of insight into, well, nearly everything. The same could be said for Koothrappali or Wolowitz. Although in the case of Wolowitz, the aggravation is _exponentially_ increased."

"And Amy?"

"I greatly enjoyed Amy's companionship." He stood uncertainly in front of Penny and sipped his Coke. "I thought if I were to enter into a male-female pair bond with anyone successfully, it would've been with her. Before she admitted to her sexual preferences for women, most specifically _you_, I was content with the happy predictability afforded by our relationship agreement."

"So how come you know how you feel about them and not me?" She was smiling. Sheldon had no idea why she should be smiling. "I mean just generally, Sheldon, how do you feel about me? You must have an answer."

He threw up his hands nearly sloshing his Coke onto the suite carpeting. "I don't have an answer, because there is no one word that-"

"As a whole!" She insisted. "Forget about like day to day situations!" She stood up and set down her Coke can, crossing her arms and staring him down.

"But that is entirely my point!" He took a step back and she took two steps forward. "Far more than any other person I have ever met, you have somehow managed to integrate yourself into the fabric of my life such that I find myself wholly unable to imagine it without you. When I have a problem that can't be answered by my own intellectual capabilities, my first thought is to come to you. When I'm upset, _your_ solace is the most comforting to me. I am constantly wondering what your opinion on a given subject would be when I know full well it is something you would know little or nothing about, or thinking of interesting things to tell you that you might enjoy even when you often do not, or imagining what you are doing when you are not in my presence!"

He licked his lips. His mind was racing. He could not account for his sense of panic. He pointed at her as if in accusation. The frustration that was always underlying his interactions with her finally rising to the surface.

"_You_ have inexplicably managed to attach yourself to both my waking thoughts and my sense of subconscious awareness to such an extent that it is as if you were somehow a physical part of me! Which is patently absurd and another one of those scientific perversities you seem so interested in. But to ask how I _feel_ about you is similarly ridiculous! It would be as well to ask me how I feel about my lymphatic system or my left humerus. Which is why when you spoke of returning to Nebraska and removing yourself from my life so completely, that figuratively speaking it would've amounted to an amputation! And there is no _one_ word to describe the whole of all _that_!"

Penny was grinning from ear to ear. He had not seen such a beatific smile on her face for a long time and it made him want to smile. But she was also crying which flummoxed him.

"Why are you _crying_?" He whined. "And smiling? What does that _mean_?"

She wiped her eyes and laughed with a choked little hiccup. "It means there _is_ one word to describe all that, you wonderful whackadoodle. You're in love with me!"

"_What_?Who said that?_"_

"I did!"

"I am _not_ in love with you," He insisted, attempting a derisive tone.

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not times infinity!"

His heart rate was much too rapid. He clutched his chest.

"Are too and I'm going to kiss you now."

"You most certainly are not!" He took two steps back, dropped his Coke, and she took three steps forward.

"Yeah? Why? If you say germs, you're lying. You kissed Amy and Beverly Hofstadter and my mouth happens to be very clean!"

"That's not why!"

"Then why not?"

Dimly he could hear the Starship Enterprise's sirens signaling the ship's impending demise in his head.

"B-b-because because if _you_ kiss me I'll likely never have a single coherent thought again!"

"You almost kissed me last night!"

"I recall no such thing!"

"Hang onto your hat, buster!"

"What h-"

He was rudely interrupted when she grabbed him by the lapels of his pajamas and suddenly there were Penny lips on his lips.

He shut his eyes.


	10. Chapter 10

**The Bellagio Peregrination Chapter 10**

**Disclaimer**: I don't own this show. Chuck Lorre owns this show.

**Notes**: Second to last chapter, people! Thanks again for the lovely reviews!

**Chapter 10**

A supernova is the explosion of a star, Sheldon knew. And it could emit as much energy as the sun. And if Sheldon didn't know better, he might've thought one was happening inside him when Penny put her lips on his.

Just the Labium superius oris and the Labium inferius oris. Granted, an erogenous zone.

But he had kissed Amy and Beverly Hofstadter and there had been no "supernova." He knew all the biological reasons why a kiss ought to feel good, but he was at a loss as to why it felt this good just because it was Penny.

Of course, those were thoughts he had a few minutes later. He had no conscious thoughts during the kiss itself as he was apparently in the midst of exploding.

It was not more than approximately seven seconds long. Just her top lip under his and her bottom lip under his as her hands grasped the lapels of his Friday pajamas. And if anyone else had been there to witness it, they would've seen the wildly spastic arm movements that Sheldon was making of which even he was unaware.

And then her lips were gone and his arms relaxed and dropped to his sides. It took him a few more seconds to realize he could open his eyes and, if necessary, breathe. Although that seemed unlikely.

Penny was staring at him, eyes wide; an expression of astonishment. He wondered what _she_ had to be so surprised about.

"At." He said.

He couldn't seem to tear his eyes away from hers. It was the oddest thing.  
"Oh," she breathed.

_Well...alright then._

He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers again as more data was clearly needed. And desired.

Kiss. Explosion. Kiss. Explosion.

Lip-lock. So that's what that meant. His lips interlocked with Penny's and then if he pulled back just slightly their lips sort of dragged against each other in a way that sent figurative hydrogen atoms from his figurative supernova dancing across his universe. And they made a soft smacking noise. Saliva was something he generally considered unwanted, but in this context it was quite good when it made her lips just a little bit wet like that...

It had not occurred to him that he could use his hands for anything in particular or for that matter increase the duration of a kiss as he was experiencing the predicted significant lack of coherent thought, and when he leaned down and forward to get a little closer to Penny, she was forced to take steps backwards. He kiss-walked her back all the way across the room (because apparently she was not thinking very coherently either) as if searching for the answer to a difficult theorem on the surface of her lips. Relatively short closed mouth kisses, until he walked her right into the wall and she squeaked.

He broke away again and gaped at her, amazed.

"Hot darn..."

"Are too," she whispered, and threw her arms around his neck, and prodded his lips gently with the tip of her tongue. When their tongues met his arms discovered their ability to wrap around her and his hands seemed to have a sunscreen-related muscle memory, running up and down her back and squeezing her just above her hips which, apparently, made her whimper into his mouth. Her hands found his hair and mussed his normally immaculate coif.

That went on for a time until Penny finally broke away, stepped back, and swayed on her feet for a moment before stumbling onto the couch.

"So," she said breathlessly. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

He blinked down at Penny, Penny, lovely Penny.

"You...have a point."

She batted her eyes and said, "I've never seen you smile like that."

Oh, he was smiling.

Oh, he was _happy._

He pointed a finger at her. "Hang on a moment." He said, and dashed out of the suite even as Penny shouted after him.

* * *

Into the elevator and down to the lobby. During which Sheldon had a couple of minutes to have a panic attack on the subject of physics versus Penny, until it suddenly occurred to him with absolute clarity why the gamma ray detector wasn't working and, his heart pounding, he wrote equations on an invisible white board all the way through the lobby and to the concierge desk.

The concierge turned around to see that whimsical duck, Dr. Sheldon Cooper, in his pajamas, his hair sticking up all over the place, and seemingly twirling his finger through the air, muttering at nothing.

The concierge shook his head and said, "This town just destroys people."

Sheldon finally noticed the concierge and said, "I need the money."

"Sir, are you quite well?"

"I don't believe there's a word to describe my current state," Sheldon said, eyes never settling _on _anything. "By any stretch, 'well' would be a weak one. Oh...yes, in love. Penny says I'm in love. She's inexplicably correct. I'll need the money. For Penny. With whom I am in love. Apparently. I think she may have just improved my cognitive function!"

The elevator ride back to the suite would've seem intolerably long were it not for the ideas he was having. Theories, small epiphanies, questions he had never asked about particular hypotheses were rioting in his brain and he would need several hours and a dozen white boards to get it all straight. The only distraction was the strap of the duffle bag digging painfully into his shoulder and the thought of Penny waiting for him in their suite.

He reached for his key card and realized he had not brought it with him.

Knock knock knock.

"Penny!"

Knock knock knock.

"Penny!"

Knock knock knock.

Penny threw open the door. "Where did you go!"

"Penny! I have something to show you." He dropped the duffle and dragged it into the room. "I had intended this for tomorrow night but it occurred to me now that you may be enduring some amount of distress concerning-"

"Sheldon," Penny growled. "You can't just take off in the middle of...all that!"

"Oh!" He said, surprised. "I apologize if that was rude-"

"It was! I thought you freaked out or something."

"Oh. _No_!" He waved his hand and smirked. "Although I did experience a mild anxiety attack. But that was before I finally realized why the gamma ray detector I've been working on with Raj has not been functioning in our research on dark matter annihilations. And I'm almost certain that our physical activity just now stimulated a previously ignored segment of my neocortex-"

"Sheldon!" Sheldon couldn't tell if she was annoyed or amused. "What is going on?"

"Your point of inquiry regarding my activities this afternoon..." he said. "Here's my answer."

With flourish he unzipped the bag and tugged it over, emptying an enormous heap of cash onto the floor. Stacks upon stacks of neatly bundled one hundred dollars bills spilled over each other. Penny shrieked and jump up on the couch as if a mouse had skittered over the floor.

"What is that!" She squealed.

He emptied out the last of the cash and jogged over to his messenger bag to add that money to the pile.

"It's just money, Penny." He tilted his head. "Moneypenny." He gasped a chuckle. "Anyway, it's not going to bite you."

"But! What... How much is that?"

He shrugged and said, all matter of fact, "After the appropriate taxes are paid and subtracting for the Shirley Temples, root beer floats, and subpar cheeseburger I had to sustain myself during the course of my casino expedition, the amount comes to exactly five hundred thousand two hundred and seventy-seven dollars and sixty-two cents."

"Holy mother of...Sheldon!" Her voice went so high Sheldon actually clapped a hand to his left ear. "That's incredible!"

She jumped down from the couch to hug him "That's amazing, sweetie! Good for you! Oh my God! What're you gonna do with all this money?"

Sheldon's heart leapt once again when she hugged him but he frowned at her. "Penny, you misunderstand me. The money's not for _me_, it's for you."

She pulled away and blinked at him. "I'm...wha...huh?"

"I have all the money I require, Penny, as I've told you before. The entire point of this venture was to solve the problem of your lack of funds."

Penny sputtered several unintelligible words and finally said, "But but but...it's...I can't! I can't take all that money! That's your money! And it's so much!"

"It's _not _my money," he insisted. "I don't need it. I would just as well set it on fire much like The Joker in _Dark Knight _if only as an auspiciously dramatic gesture_._ I would not even say I earned it as I find the activity of card counting tediously simple. It is not a loan and it is not a gift. It's _your_ money."

"Sheldon," she gasped. "That's...that's half a _million_ dollars."

"Yes, we've established that," he said. "And now it's yours. Are you not grasping this concept? I don't see what's so difficult to understand."

Penny was swaying on her feet again and when he took a step toward her she fainted into a blonde and Hello Kitty patterned heap.

"Well, good Lord," he muttered, kneeling by her side. "It's catching."

* * *

"In a sense, Penny, _you_ did earn it by rescuing me from those dastardly casino hoodlums," Sheldon was saying as he scribbled equations and notes onto spare sheets of paper at the suite dining table. "Although I suppose Gregorus the Bear Shaman turned out alright. Mythologically speaking, the money is treasure or booty. Your reward as the previously downtrodden hero."

"But I didn't do that for the money." She stood in the middle of the room, sipping the juice Sheldon had foisted on her (fearing low blood sugar as a cause of fainting) and staring almost distrustfully at the pile of cash. Somehow she doubted its very existence. "I did that because Leonard said you were in trouble."

"Of course, you didn't do it for the money," he agreed. "You didn't know the money existed."

"But it…it seems wrong," she muttered. "Too easy."

Sheldon groaned. "I understand that there may be some social convention to which you are so stubbornly adhering regarding excess wealth but it is quite simple. You needed money. I have a particular method of acquiring large amounts of money. Now you have money. I could draw an infographic, if you like."

Her head was spinning. Rent, tuition, Penny Blossoms… She wouldn't have to worry about paying for any of that anymore. A wild idea of the future flitted through her head; the down payment on a house with a pool and a whole room just for white boards…

"Hey, wait a minute." She walked over to Sheldon who was scribbling with his head down and cleared her throat. He looked up and she rose an eyebrow. "There have to be some kind of strings attached to this, right? I mean…rules or…requirements. You don't do anything without a notary stamp."

He shrugged. "Fair enough. I do have two demands, I suppose you could call them. Though a notary isn't necessary."

She chuckled. "Right. Dating and roommates require thirty-page contracts, but a half a million bucks is no big deal."

"I only need contracts for the import things," he said seriously. "Anyhow, I would ask first that you not give any more money to men with the potential to abscond with it and also that you buy a new car. A _new_ car."

Penny blinked at him. "That's it? You're not going to like…insist on picking out my college classes for me or write me a business plan or…I dunno… A budget or something?"

He finally looked up from his scribbling. "If you require my assistance, I'll certainly assist you."

He was so…trusting. It was mind boggling.

"And I won't spend it all on shoes," she said. He looked up sharply and she rolled her eyes. "Shoes being representative of a whole _bunch_ of things which would be a waste."

"Good." He went back down at his equations.

"Soooo…" Her head was slooowly starting to absorb this new reality. "How did you end up counting cards anyway? What's the deal with The X-Men and all that?"

So Sheldon told Penny the whole story (in as many words as possible) of his one and only previous trip to Las Vegas with Leonard, Howard, and Raj; how they had begged him to count cards as a team (though Sheldon didn't particularly need one) with the promise of vintage arcade games and a visit to a train museum. How it was so easy for him to win at Black Jack that they dubbed him Gambit which became a code they used amongst themselves for signs of trouble from casino staff.

He told her how they had made three million dollars in two days and ended up at an underground game in Old Vegas where they won big and met a beautiful Czech woman named Baruska who lured Howard, Leonard, and Raj to her hotel room while Sheldon went off to play Miss PacMan with a stack of cash in his bag (for quarters and grape soda, he said). Meanwhile, the boys were tied up, and the money was stolen by the beautiful Baruska. By the time hotel security had found the boys, Sheldon had come darn near to the kill screen on Donkey Kong before returning to his hotel room where he left the rest of the money.

When they finally met back up outside The Flamingo, they were spotted and chased by Men In Suits from the now shuttered Diamond Hand Casino who did not appreciate card counters and were not above herding them into a limo at gun point and leaving them in their underwear in the middle of the desert. They were forced to walk and hitchhike their way back to Vegas. The only money remaining was the stack Sheldon had left in their room which he split with his friends because, after all, Sheldon didn't care about money.

The event had so traumatized him at the time and made him so paranoid about casino toughs catching up with them one day, that he insisted they effectively erase it from their shared history. A real life retcon. So Sheldon had written dossiers detailing an entirely fictional week in San Diego even to the point of faked photographs and forbade all of them from ever counting traditional playing cards again (obviously, this did not apply to fantasy card games as one never knew when they might need to get revenge on an arch enemy in a Mystic Warlords of Ka'ah tournament). They never spoke of the fated trip to Vegas. It did not exist.

"Wait a minute," Penny said. She was leaning against the big upholstered dining chair he sat in. "That picture of you and Raj in front of the shark tank is fake?"

"Yes," Sheldon said. "In fact, Raj wanted to go to Sea World when we went to ComicCon that summer but I thought it would look suspicious as we had supposedly just been to San Diego a few months before."

"Wow. That is thorough." Penny nodded. Sounded like Sheldon alright. "So… I mean you were never ever going to count again. But you did. Just for me?"

Sheldon stopped writing and looked up at her. "Well, it... It was the most logical solution."

She ran a hand through his soft brown hair. "But definitely not the most practical."

"I suppose not."

He had a different look in his eyes already. If you didn't know him, you wouldn't see it. But she could see it clearly. He had love in his eyes. It was like a veil had been lifted. She bit her lip and stepped in front of the big chair to sit in his lap and put her arms around his neck, her legs hanging over his arm and completely blocking him from working.

"Excuse me," he protested weakly. "You're sitting in my personal lap."

"No." She shook her head. "I'm sitting in my spot. I called dibs."

He smiled and blushed so she ran her hand through his hair again (which was her new favorite thing) and kissed him on the lips and on the corner of his mouth and on his jaw.

He did not protest.

If nothing else, Penny considered that Amy had succeeded in getting Sheldon's head around the very idea of even having a girlfriend. When things were less awkward, Penny would need to send a thank you card or something.

She was working her way towards his ear when he said, "Penny..."

"Mmmhmm...?"

He made a noise somewhere between a laugh and whimper and put a hand on her cheek gently angling her away.

"I do need to ask you something..."

"Sure, sweetie pie. Whatsit?"

"Well..." He swallowed. "Earlier through a rather impressive showing of rhetorical gamesmanship as well as arguably consensual oral assault, you did provoke me into revealing my true...thoughts. About you. But it occurs to me you have not done the same."

"Oooh, Shelly," she whispered. "Why must you always hound me about my feelings?"

He narrowed his eyes. "Droll. How 'bout your _thoughts_?"

"Feelings?"

"Thoughts?"

"Well..." She traced the line of his jaw, fascinated by the idea that she suddenly had permission to touch him with reckless abandon and, against all odds, he _liked_ it. "I think you're funny even though you think you don't have a sense of humor. I think you ramble on about weird facts like the history of candy or the origin of the crossbow because you love _all_ knowledge so much you can't imagine that other people don't love it as much as you do. I think you can't stand how much you actually do care about your friends and it makes you sadder than you let on when your friends hurt you. And you feel worse than you let on when you hurt them. I think a big part of you is still an eleven year-old boy going off to college all by himself. I think the secrets of the universe are in your head always just dying to get out..." She spoke soft and ran her fingers lightly above his eyebrows; the closest she could get to his beautiful mind. His mouth had fallen open. She could swear his hands were trembling but he kept looking at her. "I think sometimes with all those secrets of the universe whispering in your head, it makes it hard to hear people. But you're getting better at it. And when you do something kind, it means more than when anyone else does it, because it means you heard someone calling you through all those electrons and quarks and black holes..." She traced his lips. "I think you love your mother and your meemaw. And me. And I love you too. And I think you have the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen."

He said, "I...I don't...know how to..." She stopped him with a kiss and he whispered, "Am too."


	11. Chapter 11

**The Bellagio Peregrination Chapter 11**

**Disclaimer**: I don't own this show. Chuck Lorre owns this show.

**Notes**: Last chapter! I'm considering a sequel but I can't promise anything. Also, I know nothing about string theory. I googled just to come up with semi-convincing Sheldon-speak but I don't know what I'm talking about. Ahead: Ball pit/bongos Sheldon cranked up to 11. Thanks for the lovely reviews! I'm considering a sequel, partly because this end up as M-rated as I'd originally intended.

**Chapter 11**

It was late. Sheldon's itinerary had once again been shot to hell, but neither seemed to want to end the night. Sheldon, though accustomed to his routines, was also accustomed to pulling all-nighters if gaming or string theory or that magnificent person from across the hall who by some paradox of all known reason preferred his company to anyone else's demanded it, and he had no aversion to awaiting the sunrise with Penny. Following an extended period of soft kisses and a lot of wide-eyed gazing, Sheldon had spilled juice on his pajamas when Penny surprised him with a kiss on the back of his neck and changed clothes yet again into another Green Lantern t-shirt. And because he felt silly wearing his Green Lantern t-shirt with his pajama pants, he went ahead and put on his emergency back-up pants.

So they were on the couch again, half watching anime on mute which was Sheldon's call, while the Billie Holiday station played on Pandora, which was Penny's call. Sheldon continued madly scribbling equations in between bouts of glorious embracing.

But he was obviously only pretending to work when he said, "Does this mean we're going to engage in-"

"Don't say it."

"Mm, amorous activities?"

Penny chuckled into a fresh cup of coffee. "If you mean are we going to have sex, then I certainly hope so. At some point. But...I'd like to do it differently."

He looked up in alarm. "I'm aware there are a multitude of sexual positions but as I'm hardly versed in the most ordinary-"

"No, no, no." She grabbed his hand and tried not to laugh at him. "I don't mean I want to do _it_ differently. I mean I want to take my time. Our time. With this. I never take my time with guys. But you're..." She bit her lip. "I feel like a girl with you, Sheldon. Everything feels _new_."

"Am I to understand you'd like to be..." He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Courted?"

She gasped. "Awww, that's adorable! You gallant Texas gentleman you!"

"Oh, now who's condescending?"

"No, I'm sorry! It is adorable though. I'd love to be courted." She kissed the back of his hand. "I've been picked up and played and just plain nagged into bed. Never really courted."

They let the unspoken remain unspoken; that Leonard was included in that number.

"So shall we say we've officially altered the paradigm of our relationship?" He tapped his pen with the hand not holding Penny's.

"You and your paradigms."

"It's just a word, Penny." He smirked at her. "Don't be frightened."

"Hey!" She dropped his hand and mussed up his hair, but her lips twitched in his amusement. "'Kay, let's get one thing straight, laser brain. I am not Amy."

"I'm aware of this."

"What I mean is, and I'm only going to say this once... If I hear the words "relationship agreement", I will stick your Stan Lee signed Hulk hands where the sun does not shine."

Sheldon grunted. He opened and closed his mouth a couple times and grimaced and pursed his lips.

"Penny-"

"Sheldon, I will call your mother. And she _likes_ me." She rose her eyebrows in challenge.

He glared at her and finally said, "Noted."

She pecked him on the nose. "Thank you, sweetie pie."

"Oh dear Lord, what have I done?"

There remained a giant pile of money on the floor.

* * *

They sat apart on the couch, their laptops on their knees.

"Are you certain about this?" Sheldon said. "I have been told on more than one occasion that fraternal alliances hierarchically precede the needs of ethically compromised women. Perhaps a discussion should be had first."

"Bros before hos," Penny muttered. "I can't believe I just understood that. Anyway, yes. Leonard's cool. He told me if I want to end up flossing three feet from the bathroom mirror in twenty years, that was up to me. I had kind of already told him that, ya know… I like you and stuff." Sheldon was smug and cackling lightly to himself. She nudged him. "What're you smirking at?"

"I knew I was the guy."

She grinned and blushed as her finger hovered over the track pad on her laptop. "So are we really doing this?"

"We've changed the paradigm of our relationship," Sheldon said. "This is the sociological record of note."

"Right," Penny agreed. "I'm just kinda surprised you're so…ready. So soon."

"I don't see why. Of the two of us you're much more likely to exhibit so-called 'commitment issues' and renege on the alteration of a relationship status."

"Oooh, that's right.'" Penny said wryly. "I forgot what a love guru you are. It's not like you've ever run screaming from even the suggestion of dating. And I did mean that literally. I have actually seen you run screaming."

"Thirty-one." Sheldon mumbled.

"That number was never proven!" Penny shrieked. "Look, you're so ready, then do it."

"I was just _about_ to," he insisted.

"Well, go ahead."

His fingers rested on his keyboard. "Fine. Then I will."

…

"I'm waaaiting," she sang.

"If this is so significant to you" he said, "then why don't you go first?"

She rose an eyebrow. "You brought it up!"

"We'll do it simultaneously," he said, jaw twitching.

"Fine. Count of three," she said.

"One."

"Two."

"Three."

Click click click click.

They both exhaled.

"Now it's official," she said softly. "It's on Facebook."

He nodded. "So. That's done."

"Now what?"

Their heads both turned in the direction of their cellphones as if waiting for them to explode.

It was two o'clock in the morning.

* * *

Sheldon was guzzling grape soda and taping pages from his notebook onto the hotel walls.

He grunted in frustration. "It's no good! I need a whiteboard! I can't _see_ it."

Penny looked up from her laptop. She was looking at fabric prices online. It was ridiculous. They had absolutely no reason to be awake at three o'clock in the morning. On the other hand, Penny had seen Sheldon's itinerary for the next day and it mostly consisted of peer reviewed journals and the vintage arcade down the strip. Her own plans were mostly mojito and/or pool related.

The money was now stacked neatly back in its duffle bag.

"Oh no," Penny said. "Are you stuck?"

"Only in the same way that all particle physicists have been stuck since Philip Warren Anderson proposed spontaneous symmetry breaking in 1962." Penny blinked at him and he shrugged. "The Higgs Boson. I'm so _close_ to figuring out a better mass range."

"Ah, the Higgs," Penny said nodding. "The big daddy particle."

Sheldon shrugged, ripping pages out of his notebook. "Assuming common traits of a 'big daddy' include a non-zero vacuum expectation value and the ability to be constrained by precision measurements of the Fermi constant, than yes, it is an unadulterated kahuna."

"Yep, that's what I meant by big daddy." Penny stood and stretched. "Hey, didn't you say you thought our kissing stimulated your frontal cortex?"

"My _neo_cortex," he mumbled. He turned around and fixed her with his epiphany-look. "Unless it was just a coincidence."

Penny pursed her lips and ambled over to her beloved physicist. "You'll never know unless you test your hypothesis..."

"Well, I suppose," he said with an impish smile. "For science."

"For science," she agreed, eyes shining.

They hadn't kissed in nearly an hour and that was entirely too long so Penny cupped his cheeks between her hands and yanked him downwards as he sounded a surprised yelp. His hands found her waist and her shirt kept riding up, his fingers occasionally brushing the small of her back. They collapsed on the couch and she ran her lips along his neck, which she already knew made his voice magically husky.

"I fibbed yesterday," he said.

"Mmmbout what?"

"I do think about the small of your back," he drawled.

She giggled into his neck. "Really?"

He leaned back and fixed her with a devastating gaze. "Penny, the Higgs Boson would've been found two years ago if it wasn't for the small of your back." He kissed her under her ear and palmed the curve of her hip and around, his fingers just barely slipping under the waistband of her shorts. "This particular curve has been holding back the future of physics."

"Why there?" She was surprised she could speak coherently.

"I know _everything_. And I have no idea."

"All this time..." She ran her hands up his chest. "Everybody thought you didn't even have a sex drive."

"I've never said so," he pointed out. He kissed her neck and she all but purred. "Only that I contained and ignored it. For the most part."

A moment later she pulled away.

"Do you..." She swallowed. She had a question and she thought she had the answer already. But confirmation would be nice. "Do you like me because I'm...pretty?"

She couldn't quite control the lost little girl look on her face. She'd never asked a man that before. She'd never wanted to hear their answer.

"I wouldn't classify you as merely pretty," Sheldon said, as if he were talking about some condensate (whatever a condensate was, she still didn't know). "You're quite beautiful."

That was flattering, but not the right answer.

"Oh."

"Having said that, I don't understand the question." He frowned and twined his fingers in hair. "You were beautiful when I met you and I didn't like you."

She perked up. "Really?"

"Well, that's not entirely true," he said softly. "You seemed nice at first-"

"You were so shy," she whispered. "I remember you staring at the floor, playing with the strap on your bag..."

"You expressed interest in my work... But then you sat in my spot and started talking about horoscopes. I dismissed you for a time after that."

"What changed?"

He looked befuddled. "We became friends," he said. "Your aesthetic qualities have nothing to do with my affinity for you, Penny. I've met other beautiful women who have expressed an attraction to me. I've never experienced this sort of connection with any of them. If I was only interested in the conquest of a beautiful woman, there are thousands to choose from in Pasadena alone... But none of them are you."

Right answer.

Penny stared at him, mystified. "You know what's crazy?" She kissed his chin and his cheek and that spot near his ear.

"Many things," he murmured. "Vincent Van Gogh...wave-particle duality...the degree to which I enjoy..." She nibbled lightly on his earlobe and he gasped, "_That._"

She kissed her way back to his lips and said, "What's crazy is that you're the most romantic man I've ever met."

"I'm not trying to be romantic," he argued.

"That's exactly what makes it all so lovely, sweetie pie." She captured his lips and shifted, straddling him, wrapping her arms around him.

Things became heated as they kissed.

"I didn't..." Sheldon breathed.

"Huh?" Penny panted.

"I'm not finished."

"Oh... Mmm!"

"I didn't...sanitize my hands...for almost four hours...today..."

Tongue. Lips. Tongue. Teeth. Sheldon's tongue was nearly as brilliant as his mind, she decided.

"Mmmwhy?"

"They wouldn't have...smelled like...mmmm...sunscreen anymore..."

She felt dizzy. She bit his lip gently. "I'll tell you a secret..."

"Mmm?"

She breathed into his mouth. Looked him straight in the eye. "When you were rubbing lotion on the small of my back...? I...came."

He blinked at her. "Came to...?"

She held him tightly. She could feel _him_ under her and her mouth dropped as she sighed in pleasure. "Sheldon. I...climaxed. I _came._"

Understanding dawned on him and his eyes went wide so she just kissed him again.

"_Penny..."_ He clenched and said, "Ah!" He gripped her hips hard for a moment and then he relaxed and exhaled, resting his forehead against hers. "Jeepers."

She pecked him on the nose. "S'okay, sweetie."

"Not really," he murmured. "I've changed my clothes four times. I'm dangerously near to running out of pants." Suddenly he leaned back with a start and clutched her shoulders, eyes wide again. "Penny!" He looked as if he'd just remembered something.

"Whoa, what?"

"The mass range!" He said. "The mass range _shifts_!"

"Oh," she said. "Good?"

"Yes! Very good! I have to change my pants! I have to write it down!"

Sheldon ran off to change his pants and clean himself up and when he came back he glared at his notebook. "I need whiteboards!"

"Did you solve it?" Penny said.

"No, no, no. But I'm closer. And you did stimulate my neocortex."

"I stimulated somethin'," she muttered.

"I need more…"

Penny scowled at him. "Sheldon, I love you but if you're implying some kind of quid pro quo sex for physics exchange then-"

"No!" He said quickly. "Latin. Well done."

"Thanks."

"I need more varied forms of stimulation." He ran to his messenger bag and pulled out a big black marker, dashing back to the suite wall where he'd been taping up pages of his notebook. He tore down the pages. "Music! I need music. Beethoven! The fifth symphony! Then the ninth symphony! And Oysters! And dark chocolate!"

"_Oysters_?"

"Aphrodisiacs! I've read that they can stimulate neurogenesis." He tore the last page off the wall and uncapped his marker. "Penny, what're you waiting for? Beethoven! Chop chop!"

Penny stepped between him and wall and cleared her throat. "Um, chop chop?"

He blinked at her. "Yes." She pursed her lips at him and he flushed. "By which I meant, please?"

"Yeah, alright." She trotted back to the couch to fetch her lap top, intending to hook it up to the suite's stereo speakers and play it on Spotify. Soon enough the thunderous and infamous four notes of Beethoven's fifth boomed through the suite.

"Louder!" Sheldon said. She turned around and clapped a hand to her mouth and shrieked.

"Sheldon, what the hell are you doing?"

He was scribbling equations directly onto the pale gold and very expensive looking wallpaper of the Bellagio suite.

"Trying to write a theorem for the mass range shift!" He shouted over the string section. "What does it look like?"

"On the wall?"

"I can't work on paper! I have to stand up… I need white boards!"

"Right now? I don't know if you can get white boards at three o'clock in the morning. You want me to go look?"

"No! You can't leave, I need you here!" He shouted over Beethoven and tossed her his phone. "Call Nate!"

"Who's Nate?"

"From a science show called _Through the Wormhole_. He'll do it, trust me. Tell him I need ten, no, twelve white boards! Markers! And about twenty giant rubber balls!"

"_What_?"

"I need to visualize the leptons, don't I?" Sheldon went back to scribbling on the wall, going so far as to shove a table out of the way as he worked his way down to the floor.

Penny covered her eyes. "They're going to _kill_ you!"

"Highly improbable." He groaned and clutched his head. "Too many ideas! Half of this is still the gamma ray detector!" He whipped around to look at her with wide eyes. "Do you think I should experiment with hallucinogenic drugs like Bishop on _Fringe_?"

"NO! I'll tell your mother!"

"You're right, of course," he mumbled, scrawling along the bottom of the crown molding. "Maybe I'll experiment with Pixie Stix."

* * *

Sheldon was eating oysters while scribbling and drinking root beer because he _hated_ oysters. He'd asked the room service servers to "pretend to be gluons" for which he'd paid them fifty dollars each and they stood in the middle of the room uncertainly nibbling on a dark chocolate truffle platter and attempting to look gluon-like. Beethoven was booming, which had at first attracted complaints from neighbors until the neighbors turned out to be attendees of the conference who had already read the Higgs paper and were now camped out on the couch with snacks, watching Cooper deface hotel property as his girlfriend in the Hello Kitty pajamas barked orders into a phone.

It had occurred to Penny, once people started just appearing in the suite, that there was a half million in cash in a duffel bag. So, while directing Nate to buy bottles of bubbles ("Yes! Like the kind for little kids... _I_ don't know, something about dark matter!"), she shoved the duffel under her bed and shut the door.

By the time Nate showed up with the white boards as well as Brian Greene and three other famous physicists in tow all carrying bags of what appeared to be supplies for a kindergarten playground, Sheldon had written over a large portion of the wall and was grabbing for her hand while debating three Japanese grad students on supersymmetry.

People were tweeting, live blogging, and just plain ogling.

Sheldon had begged someone to try to get Hawking on over Skype.

Thankfully the mini-bar had plenty of tequila.

Although Sheldon was scandalized when she did body shots with Neil DeGrasse Tyson and licked salt off his wrist.

But then she kissed her moonpie on the neck and he had another breakthrough before asking Brian Green to grab a rubber ball and act like a proton.

Minutes later he had taken off his shoes and was standing on the coffee table (thankfully, a big monstrosity of solid oak construction) with three white boards and overseeing what he called "quantum choreography" and Penny called a "physics rave."

He asked the grad students to hold the white boards up for him so he could hold Penny's hand as he wrote ("It's _working_, Penny!") which rather limited her movement, but it was worth it when Ben from G4 showed up with Siebert and some guys from PBS, took one look at her, and screamed like a girl, running in the other direction.

Siebert was briefly horrified, once he fought his way through the bouncing leptons and quarks (in the form of some interns, a couple of best-selling authors, and a drunk nobel laureate) before Penny turned on the charm and offered him champagne.

"What the hell is he doing?" Siebert shouted over "Symphony No.9", handing her a half-full bottle of Korbel after taking a swig.

Penny shrugged. "Either finding the Higgs Boson or turning string theory into a giant party. Bottoms up!"

It was all kind of insanely entertaining and some of these guys were pretty fun to talk to when they were toasted and Penny found herself holding court as Sheldon worked.

And eventually the sun was rising and then-

"I GOT IT!" He squeezed her hand so hard it almost hurt. And a bunch of people were examining the white boards, both cheering and arguing as Sheldon insisted, "I've got it! Call CERN! The time to applaud would be-"

Everybody applauded.

Confetti was flying around the room (because apparently it resembled "jets of hadrons" to Sheldon) and he twirled her into his arms.

"Penny, we did it!" His eyes were wide and bright. "We did it!"

Penny just gaped at him. "_We_?"

Sheldon Cooper did not share credit. Particularly with waitresses who knew _nothing_ about physics.

"We!" He insisted. "You and me! Metaphorically speaking, we're waves and particles. At the same time. Which is not supposed to be possible! We're a complementary phenomena but observable simultaneously!"

Penny laughed as the London Philharmonic boomed the "Ode to Joy" through the suite. "I don't understand!"

"But you _will_!" He looked so sure.

"Sheldon, you're crazy!"

She expected the line and he didn't say it this time.

Instead he said, "I know."

"But I love you anyway!"

"The salient point is this," he shouted. "_You_ were what was missing, Penny. You're my Higgs Boson! You're my Theory of Everything!"

He dipped her backwards into a passionate kiss. Because that's what the hero does.

And that was when Leonard, Howard, and Raj showed up at the door; dehydrated, chapped of lip, in their underwear, and jaws on the floor to see the best minds of the science world dancing (Or...was that dancing? What were they _doing_?) with bubbles and confetti and big rubber balls and in the middle of it all, on top of a table with a bunch of scrawled over whiteboards fanned out behind them, was Crazy Sheldon in his Green Lantern shirt kissing Miss Penny Hello Kitty Shorts of 4B, bent backwards with her leg up in the air like the two of them were returned warriors from some grand campaign as a choir howled in German about stars and joy.

Leonard said, "I don't know about you guys, but this is pretty much what I expected!"

**THE END!**


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